Yes, I agree. I certainly do not have a voice that warrants a recording contract, but I sing nevertheless, in choirs (over the years), or at church, or around the house with my children (they are currently listening to Bob Dylan), or with my wife at the piano. This kind of social expression of creativity is difficult for many people, however, because they have been taught to believe that only the recording contract verifies a singer. We need to teach people that other ways are possible.

I come from a family of five, three of whom have gone on to do music in a semi-professional way, and all of whom continue to share music as a family, but this social expression of music is something that was taught to us. My parents used to dress us up in matching outfits and have us sing at family reunions and church events. I was often embarrassed by this, particularly as a young teen, but what I learned was valuable: to share our creativity with one another is a gift.

Music comes to mind for me. In our culture, we have musicians, singers, dancers… When someone says that they “can’t sing,” it always frustrates me a little. Culture doesn’t have to be performance—creativity, at its heart, is a social act.

I agree with you that the internet has made possible more and better writing than there has been at any previous point in history, and part of what I love about the net is that it allows this production apart from a strict adherence to the criteria of a publishing industry. I would suggest, however, that writing for the net remains a writing for publication in several crucial ways. Though it can sometimes be an amateur writing,and though its professional writing, when at its best, approaches an amateur writing very closely, it is not exactly the kind of writing that I am advocating here. I am advocating for a kind of writing that never actually appears at all beyond the relationship that fosters it. I am advocating for a writing that is strictly amateur, in that it is strictly motivated by love for the one who receives it.

Unfortunately, the only response I have to this is: who do you think constitutes “we”?

More and better writing is being produced now, today, by more people than has ever been produced before, at any time in the history of civilization, ever. NaNoWriMo. Blogs. Zines, fan fiction, you name it, the quantity of it is staggering.

Putting a manifesto like this on the internet, of all places, gives the impression of a man caught in the middle of a towering forest fire, looking for a light for his cigarette.