Re: writing/publishing
Sundeep Dougal (holden@giasdl01.vsnl.net.in)
Mon, 20 Sep 1999 13:40:06 +0530
To publish or not to publish -- that is the question.
Whether it's better in a safe to bury
The effusions and outpourings of outrageous fancy,
Or send a polished copy to the press,
And by disclosing, ruin it all? To publish no doubt
No more; and by one act to say we end
The heart-ache, and a thousand natural shocks
Of typing frenzy -- 'its a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To publish -- to beam
>From the same shelf with Maynard, in calf well-bound:
To sleep, perchance, with Wiggins -- Ay, there's the rub --
For to what class a writer may be doom'd
When he has shuffled off some rambling stuff,
Must give us pause. There's the mystique that makes
Th' reclusive author keep his piece so many years.
For who would bear th' impatient thirst of fame,
The hounding by the media, and 'bove all,
The tedious importunity of fans,
When as himself might his _quietus_ make
With a bare sheet of papyrus? Who would fardles bear
To groan and squirm under a load of literary comment?
That saga of Glass, groaning for the traveller
To that undiscover'd country, his wife missing
Seeking nirvana perhaps in an exotic land, under
The Boddhistva tree: inverted or not, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear to lives unknown,
Than run the hazard to be known and damn'd.
Thus critics do make cowards of us all,
And thus the unhealthful face of many a story
Is sickly'd o'er with a pale manuscript;
And enterprise of great labour and pain,
With this regard from the press turn away,
And lose the name of writer. Soft you now!
Beholden to Holden! See more now, in thy fame
Be all my writing remember'd!