THE PAPER BUSINESS

CHEATERS INC. & DUMB LUCK LTD. Part 2 From The Chapter – The Dream

I cannot take credit for developing the paper business, referred to as term paper mills or cheating sites. The practice of buying term papers long existed, and the idea came to me watching what might have been an ABC Afternoon Special, though I am unsure. The barely memorable show involved a man selling essays out of a bodega. As a child, I did not fully understand the business, but it struck me as odd, explaining why the essay seller in his little store never left me, perhaps foreshadowing my future.

I read a lot as a kid, and though a terrible student, I enjoyed writing and practiced a rote learning method of rewriting poetry, like Casey at the Bat and The Raven, stealing style and meter for my pitiful and immature words. In sixth grade, I wrote my first novel on looseleaf, which I hid in my room, too embarrassed to show anyone. The story, stolen from the early eighties action movie plots, involved a friendless boy struggling against bullies whom a martial arts instructor took as a student to teach the secrets of Ninjutsu, Hapkido, and other deadly practices. Now able to fend off the bullies, he is targeted more by fellow middle schoolers and their teachers bent on his destruction. They kill his master, the only man who cares, and fighting a great battle, he kills many of the bullies.

Rooted in this tragic masterpiece, one of the inspirations to write reveals as an escape. I seriously doubt any burgeoning author undertakes the craft with the intent to uncover wisdom. From what I witnessed, most authors escape, but escape limits not to the narrative and often manifests in the writer’s goal to achieve the fantasy refuge afforded by capitalism’s proliferation of trade fiction. These writers see themselves as Stephen King and Suzanne Collins, scribing their way to fame and fortune, interested little in divining truth or understanding. They envision book tours, media engagements, and standing in the spotlight giving speeches, never knowing the literary substance lacking that makes those acts worthy.

A lucky few will stumble into fame regardless of topic or talent, but most will fail. “Fail” sounds harsh, but it is a well-deserved fate for having put no time or effort into learning except to avoid using adverbs and the proper length of a chapter, as though these lessons defined skilled writing. They argue how plot elevates the novel to greatness more than writing skill and how they naturally story-tell and merely pay the bottom-feeding editor to place their commas. They hold these opinions because their writing method outputs satisfactory stories that blind them to the need to write and rewrite a sentence to sculpt meaning. Sadly, their dollar sign dreams of signing books make them the rule of literature, not the exception, since everyone must kneel before the currency in God We Trust, regardless of merit or skill.

Still, the litterateurs, prose crusaders, and word samurais, defending meaning in the elite authorship army, of which I consider myself a loyal soldier, must also eat. Finely crafted story cannot sate the starving artist! Unlike my bastard, trade-fiction siblings envisaging themselves sitting between Brad Pitt and Jenna Ortega, awaiting best picture award made possible by their timeless novel, the literary champions already deduced the enslavement of the authorship pipedream and life-stealing production line that stamps out trade fiction — enforced by capitalist values.

Knowing this truth resolves us to uphold literature’s honor, credibility, truth, and wisdom by Davinci-ing the art of word to divine meaning for all humanity to marvel. We resolve to accomplish this task against poverty’s threat by producing writing so valuable that the dollar djinni has no choice but to grant profit. To this end, the innocent child outcast scrawling his first novel becomes the Machiavelli bodega or e-commerce entrepreneur, term paper seller secretly writing masterpieces because the dollars earned justify the literary ends.