We Need Another Hero
My way of saying that the editors of magazines, and for that matter most of the suits in the publishing industry, are a pack of jackals whose vision is limited to literary scat.
The editor of the magazine that published this missile, Barbaric Yawp, agreed.
And you think that the slaughter is over,
And you’ve laid down your weapons in peace;
The typewriter’s quiet, computer’s shut down,
Or it’s not on Word Perfect at least.
There is a battle raging as I write these words, and while you may not have heard it on the evening news, nor read about it in the newspaper, it is an ongoing struggle that has lasted for centuries. It lays waste to thousands— perhaps hundreds of thousands —of innocent victims every day. Its fields of destruction are me— you —anyone who dares to sheath his sword and brandish a pen, for truly, the pen is mightier than the sword.
True, the clashes are silent, but the war between those powerful knights— Discouragement the Rejector, son of Profit the Merciless, and Encouragement the Hopeful, son of Writer the Noble —exacts a cost too dear, ultimately, for mankind to pay. Protagonists, antagonists, allies, enemies, changelings, mentors, shape shifters, tricksters, archetypes, threshold guardians . . . all crumple where they stand because no heroes will step forth and lead them. No one will create their stories.
Writer the Noble, you may recall from Lexicon’s Mythology, was a mighty ruler in former times. A god in the eyes of some, he survived despots and tyrants, crusades, dark ages, famines, ignorance, revolutions, religion, and technology. Yet, when confronted by the mightiest adversary of all, Profit the Merciless, he fell, mortally wounded.
Desperate to leave a legacy, Writer the Noble lay bleeding on the battlefield, dying. Profit the Merciless towered over him, poised to strike the death blow when, terrified and willing to compromise rather than die at the hands of his nemesis, Writer the Noble plead for his life with a request.
“One last son,” he begged.
“Only if I match him with one of my own,” replied Profit the Merciless, gloating.
“It is done!” cried Writer the Noble. And it was done. Encouragement and Discouragement were born.
Writer the Noble and Profit the Merciless are old now. Both remain powerful, opposing forces, but it is their sons, Encouragement and Discouragement, who fight the battles these days. In you, in me.
And so it should not have come as a surprise when, at a recent gathering of the Lords of Publishing, the rally call was heard o’er the land:
“We are looking for the next John Grisham! Bring us the next Stephen King!”
“Ignore him!” cried a stranger in the crowd.
There was a violent stir throughout the assembly, then a hush, as all eyes turned to the stranger. A mercenary from the castle of New York shielded his eyes behind designer visors and shook his long, black mane. All of the lords murmured.
“This,” heralded the stranger to his countrymen as he stood and waved a blue/black pen in the air, “can make the dollar. But I say to you, the dollar can never make this!”
The peasants cheered wildly.
“Now I ask you,” proclaimed the stranger to the throng, and with a stentorian voice, “Your pens have bled with Writer the Noble! Will they bleed now with me?”
And you say that the slaughter is over,
And we’ve laid down our weapons in peace . . .
