I have no figures but I get the feeling that a greater part of the web is unpaid writing. Andy Warhol predicted that everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes. I suppose it depends on how many people it takes to be following you in some way that warrants the fame tag, but the Internet may well be the showcase that some have been craving.
I don't write for others, only myself. If others then want to read a little of what I clumsily type on my ageing laptop then I have no objections, indeed I cannot have any, because I have unzipped my flies, as it were, by choosing to 'publish' in a publicly accessible place.
A livewire on a creative writing course in 2008 said everyone has a book inside them - unfortunately, they are for the greater part deadly dull and should remain in dusty lofts or damp cellars forever. I have no pretentions towards creative writing as a means to support myself, but a textbook or two to pay the heating or air-conditioning bills, the nature of the electronic comfort dependant on wherever I end up grumbling away my final years, might be acceptable. So, perhaps I'll buck the trend and follow Dr Johnson's sagacity, incidentally fulfilling Warhol's oft-quoted maxim into the bargain.
