The System
I read an interview with playwright Kate Fodor over on Adam Symkowicz’s blog , and in it she shared a quote about life as a writer from Cary Tennis, who is an advice columnist at Salon.com , oddly enough. Anyway, I thought it was terrific and thought I’d do my part to spread the good word: “Remember that as a writer you must find your motivation internally, not in external rewards, and you work in opposition to the system, not as a supplicant to the system. Whatever contingent truces you have maintained with the system in order to participate in its orderly orgies of consumption and distribution, good for you. But you are not a part of the system. You are a free creative worker. You do not need the system to do your creating. You only need it as a utility to reach your audience, and increasingly not even for that. On the other hand, the system cannot create anything on its own. It can only manage and distribute. So it needs you. It needs you but it is not on your side. Remember that.” ...