interlude

A lot of the other blogs I finished reading up on are a lot more personal than mine, and I wondered whether adding an element of me would benefit my writing or not.

I never really spoke on why this was an actual issue to me. This decline of published literature. I think the severity of the issue differs depending on whether you actually like to read or not. Reading to me is pretty ingrained in my personality. I grew up in a household that rarely put the TV on and encouraged us (me and my two older brothers) to excel in the Summer Reading Program at our local libraries. We used to get books for Christmas and go to the bookstore as a reward for good grades. I LOVED to read as a kid. The worlds, the magic, the heroes, the villains. I couldn't get enough of it, this new sense of escapism. Some of my friends hated to read and it genuinely confused me. I held on to my books every time we moved. I am a military kid, and it was hard to up and move your whole life every few years. But my books were always there. I still love to read, but life has reared its head, and I have learned to value the time I can dedicate to my literary journey.

I grew up holding onto my books because they never changed. Every time I would open the cover, there would be the wonderful story I knew and loved. My books were my best friends because staying in touch as a 6-year-old was pretty hard when there was 600 miles between you and any of your old friends. People came and went, only the books stayed the same. So, I came to rely on the continuity of the books I read. And I read a lot. I think I've said it before, but at one point my parents begged me to read anything other than Harry Potter, they even bought me new books. I had read the series front to back 5 times in a row. I had built an emotional connection to the characters; I had made new friends. Elementary Katie really struggled with friends.

When I was younger my mother told me I had a "voracious appetite for books" and I didn't know what that meant. I thought it was an insult and gave her the silent treatment. So, she bought me a little dictionary, and I still have it, and voracious is underlined, starred, and highlighted. I have underlined, starred, and highlighted a lot more words in that little dictionary, it's quite precious to me now. But all of these books have gone on the journey of life with me. And I kept buying more, as one does, but the books started to feel weaker, cheaper, shallower. It was upsetting.

It's gotten worse lately. Cookie-cutter plots, AI generated stories, just all-out sex stories. They are missing the warmth of human emotion; the deeper message found in books. To me, an author always leaves a little piece of themselves in a text. AI is just a machine, that little nugget that makes the book special, the "golden nugget" in literature is missing, when a book is generated with just a prompt. Watching books lose their spark and cater to public desires rather than meaningful expression is a hard pill to swallow for me. I value books for their effect in my life. And watching people consume the same literature time and again does not allow them to grow, and it will stunt neurological stimulation and the deep reading that is so valued today will lessen over time. Deep readings of literature will not be to the same level as it used to be, and it will negatively impact generations to come.

It used to be a battle to get a work published. Every story had to be stimulating and well-written and filled with a deep, loving effort from the author to generate a work of art that would garner attention. Publishing houses accept pretty much everything today, anything that will sell well at least, or anything that is currently popular. They are doing us a disservice by widening the strainer for works that go out to influence the public.