Hopes of a Writer

I believe writing is like fire at the darkest night. It illuminates. It enlightens. It guides. It leads us through the unknown.
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But Indonesia is the country where writers are a bunch of second class citizen. They are struggling to make their ends meet. They have to do other jobs to survive while working on their pieces. They don’t get the support they need to thrive and live.
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This is the country where writers are taxed 24 times higher than micro and small business owners and twice as much than any freelancers working in other industries. They work the hardest and earn the smallest chunk of book sales (10% for every copy sold) while publishers get 38%, distributors 17%, and bookstores 35%).
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Meanwhile, the government keeps pushing people to read more but ridiculously do little to ease the situations.
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On this 75th celebration of Indonesia’s Independence Day, I won’t tell the government or others what to do to solve this. But I won’t give up that easily to help protect my craftmanship and passion. May the flame of writing inside me never go out until it really should.