The Slave Bukowski

Another writer forced into the dubious nature of making a publisher rich. A slave to future publishers who made a fortune off of his writing, while he remained penniless.

And what's worse, Bukowski celebrated this. If I thought he was a fool before, I now think him doubly the fool. If writing is like making love to a beautiful woman, and then getting paid, I call that same thing marriage. Which, he scorned.

A song is playing, "A Little Bit of Sympathy." I will give him sympathy. The same censorship which left him destitute is the same idiocy that keeps me. I do not want a publisher making millions off of my work, while I lived scrounging for the bare minimum. I enjoy writing, I find wisdom in it... But I do not wish to make someone else rich. Unless, of course, I had already had my fair salary. Then I do not care what happens to my writing, if I got to eat from its fruits.

How many writers does this happen to? Austen, Chatterton, Bukowski. The greatest insult is the generations later, who consume the books like a product, making publishers rich while the genius behind it hadn't made all but five hundred dollars. It's ridiculous.

The most noble author is the one who gets paid for his genius. The most unfortunate author is the one who pays his publisher for his genius. It's better not to get published at all.

Bukowski---I don't despise your writing. Only that you needed to be paid for your work. Not like a slave. Though, it's the wisdom of the Preacher in Ecclesiastes. A man compiles a whole lifetime for wisdom, and gives it to another man more righteous than himself. I hope to purify myself through Christ, so I can eat. But, you wrote wisely on the vanity of life, and had we been switched in time and space, we'd probably both have enjoyed our bounty.

Your wisdom was that life is vanity. However, I have hope.