Writing will only die with civilization itself, at least in the sense that it will not continue to grow. I'm not so worried about that, per se.
It can, however, lose its way. And I do think this is happening to some degree.
The current turn writing is taking, at least around the circles where I currently cohabit. There is this growing unease that all the old traditional forms of dramaturgy have given us all the same plots over and over again. This has lead to a revival of a strange form of poetry that is
skillful writing, in that it is difficult to successfully write, but ultimately says nothing of its own merits and only serves to impress the reader. Christian Bök is definitely the one who started it, that much is for certain.
I disliked this turn of events so much, I actually made a
game dedicated to the purpose of making fun of this trend. ("Fun" as in ridicule.) Here is what remains on the top of the leaderboards, which after so long finally won out two of my own works:
Mud tuts. Crud-duds burn. Run, mucus. Tubs tut.
Sly, bum? Club us up. Blub, blur rum. Hut. Huh.
Thrust, lull -- dub tugs, dub rungs. Scum? Yup, up-up-up.
Nuns bud. Guns cut. Mutts duck funk. But, plugs glut.
Mr. Cult, lull us, lull up. Up, cub. Up. Dug up. Sun.
Dull rut, nut: ugh. Musty rush -- punt, runs, pub's rug. Tum?
Truth, guts, dunks.
Runt.
Hub, jut. Crunch sums, suds, Mr. Puck.
Duly, must trust. Us? Nut. F-d up gut.
Tug, mull, bun. Nub, sundry. Rub-run.
Um, tumult? Uh, rumpus? Pulpy, nutty.
Run-slut-thud. Rum-hum-rum-cup. Duct.
Cud. Cut. Tut. Lug. Lug. Nut. Put. Bud.
Mt. Runt dug us cult curs. Jump up!
Cuss, duh. Up-chuck. Yurt tugs. Yurt (busy!) bugs.
Run, hun. Run, pup. Run, Huck.
Fur-fuzz, pun-tuft. Dud, dun. Mum?
Nut, unfurl. Us, uncurl. Up, lucky.
Nuts, crummy up? Yup.
Rug, puck, rut, dung, tuck 'n' rub. Ugh...
Hugs. Us.
Curd. Dull sun. Gum. Cut bulb.
Fluff, cut: curt
Rut, rust. Dud, tut. Sun, hug.
Suss us, nun. Nun. Gun us, nun. Blurt.
Juts pun, cup rum.
Sunny hunk.
http://incongruousquarterly.com/iq4/signalmosaic/game/display.php?i=51Is it
good writing? Well, objectively, yes. It is a univocal lipogram using the most difficult letter of the alphabet. It had to take quite a lot of consideration even get as much as it did under the game's constraints.
But does it actually
say anything? Well, no, it doesn't. It contains no message, and I don't quite think I can forgive it for that. (Then again, it beat my high score, so maybe I'm biased against it.)
But, this is what's out there now. Increasingly, it's the stuff that literary magazines and small presses will bias themselves towards, and online it's usually the stuff that is also the most meme-prone. It's the cheap, advertising-friendly writing that's becoming more and more common in the mainstream press, and I despise it.
It's gotten so bad that in my own mind I'm beginning to see "writing" and "poetry" as two entirely different fields of art. Yet, whenever I go to any writer's confrence, the poets and the novelists freely intermingle. That wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that the poets are clearly running the show by now, and their audience is even more insular than the 13% Paul Eres already mentioned. I used to think there could be a lot of overlap between books and games, but now I'm not so sure.
Who knows? Maybe I'm just looking in all the wrong places.