I thought the pissing would go away, but three days after finishing Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch, the flow has actually increased. I am ready to pull out the pages of the book, one by one, and throw them in the Clarion River. A good thing I've got a kindle, so disaster can be avoided. But this---THIS got the Pulitzer??? This is literature?
What this does is reflect perfectly what has been happening in the world of publication in the past few years. Total chaos---the basic confirmation of what a literary agent once told me at a conference. Even at the literary end of large publishing companies, they are so eager to blend in sensationalism and commercialism they come up with a mix that is not only unsavory, but total garbage. And then, politics come in. The results: they give garbage the Pulitzer.
So my humble advise to writers out there. Keep writing only if you are convinced writing is part of your heartbeat, your oxygen.
When you do, kill self-indulgence (The Godfinch is full of it) and "revise, revise, revise! "
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