Like many of us who wind up writers, Kurt Vonnegut was a deeply wounded soul. As Charles Shields recounts in his biography of the ironic author "And So It Goes," Vonnegut's mother offed herself after the family lost its wealth during The Great Depression. She did the deed on, get this, Mother's Day.
Where Vonnegut did derive pleasure and eventually was able to earn a living was through writing. He would wake up to see his article on the first page of the newspaper and that was that. He hung around to continue with living rather that following in the family tradition.
But things were different then. Decisions were made impressionistically. Editors decided if we were a keep or throw back. Of course, they took their cue from readers. But, the heat wasn't on, at least not twice a day as it is now when page views are posted.
Currently, as the powers-that-be have the technology to track how many eyeballs land on our copy and for how long before clickiing off, many of us live in fear. Sure, we still find our reason for being (and against not-being) from having a public audience for our work. But if members of that audience aren't plentiful enough or focused long enough, we could be a throw-back. No, no one told us that. We just know.
Does that pressure eat into the pleasure of writing? You bet. For a few days my numbers with a particular digital property were running low. The imagination which allows me to conceive and put together articles generated Stephen King disaster scenarios. The good news about that is that I quickly figured out how I was boring readers and quickly made changes on headlines, organization, and which examples I used. The numbers got better. Today they should be the delight of all the powers-that-be.
Tonight I go to bed and pray to a higher power that even the late Christopher Hitchens could tolerate that the universe will pull eyeballs toward what I posted today and keep them staring at the copy. Forever.
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