Received: by bdragon.shore.net (0.99.970109)
  id AA09855; 08 Mar 97 04:03:46 -0500
From: newsome@panix.com (Richard Newsome)
Reply-To: filk-l@bdragon.shore.net (Multiple recipients of Filk discussion)
Nntp-Posting-Host: panix2.panix.com



"Rebecca Ore"  writes:
>Re suggesting that writers who aren't the few top writers are wannabe fans
>maligns top writers who are also fans. 

I don't necessarily think that identifying someone as a fan is maligning them.

I can think of several fan writers who were better writers than all but a
few pro writers, but who never had any aspiration to turn pro. "Fan" just
means "amateur". "Pro" all too often is short for "prostitute". "Amateur"
means you do what you do for love, and "prostitute" means you do what
you do hatingly. 

As for the small minority that are real writers, I think they are the
ones who combine the pro's professionalism with the amateurs' love of
what they are doing, and they are the ones the amateurs and the
prostitutes wind up copying.

I don't think being a writer is a sacred estate, and I don't think one
is a failure if one isn't my idea of a real writer. (BTW, I've never read
your stuff and consequently have no opinion on you personally, although
I note that John Clute says highly flattering things about you in the
SF Encyclopedia.) My idea is that being a real writer is something like
being a real barber -- there must be some guy down at the barber college
whose work is admired by all the others and makes them exclaim "Now
that's a real barber! The rest of us are just hacks."

Richard Newsome
newsome@panix.com

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