I blame the printing press.

You heard me. The printing press. Why else would we be literally inundated with such bad writing daily? There wouldn't be a market for fifteen John Grisham books. You know, Shakespeare isn't really a classic because he's such a fabulous writer. He's a classic because he wrote in a difficult style, and he wrote a lot. Given that bookmaking was a pretty laborious process at that point in history, the fact that his words remain today says a lot about their popularity. Everyone who could read would have had a copy, like people today...read the comics. Or Stephen King. Get it? Shakespeare wrote as a populist writer, just like Dickens did when he began the concept of serialization. So people who couldn't write more than one book, really, or if they were really on a roll two or three suddenly became GREAT CLASSICAL WRITERS because they got some chapters in print once upon a time in history and got lucky.

Obviously, I do not find much merit in the works of Dickens (but I am quite fond of Shakespeare, in my limited exposure...I can appreciate the complexity of writing reams upon reams of freaking rhyming narrative dialog. Plus, he does some awesome evil villians. Even if his historical depiction is factually incorrect ala Richard III).

I remember reading The Count of Monte Cristo as a child (I think I can be forgiven for mistaking the flamboyance of the French with brilliance) and thinking I'd made a brilliant discovery!! Such an inspired writer. Oooh laaa laaa. And then I read The Three Musketeers and Twenty Years After, and realized that they were...disappointing formula! Drivel! Standard and repeatable! Downtrodden, I took four valium, put on my second best Burberry coat, fully stone laden, and swanned off down to the Thames to do my best Chav tastic dive.

That kind of standard and repeatable. The one that makes you go; ok, the second Bridget Jones was actually...not good. At one stage, you enjoy it like comfort food. As a teenager, Barbara Cartland's were like grilled cheese and tomato soup.

So I blame the printing press. Without it, and certainly without this lovely tool that allows me to abuse it daily (dear, sweet internet), writers that we all would certainly otherwise would consider to be brilliant and inspired will continue to write lost past their creative expiration dates.