The Best Of... discussion
The Best Of
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Articulated: What's wrong with the publisher/writer hamster wheel
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The ultimate question:"Should I know you?".
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"Should I know you?"."
It might not be safe . . .
But it's up to you.
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Or..."Peirpont". I'd orphan myself over that.
...Moreover, because success and public attention operate as a sort of pressure cooker or freezer, there has been a discouraging tendency for the talent to bake or congeal at a premature level of inner development.
In America the career almost invariably becomes an obsession. The "get-ahead" principle, carried to such extreme, inspires our writers to enormous efforts. A new book must come out every year. Otherwise they get panicky, and the first thing you know they belong to Alcoholics Anonymous or have embraced religion or plunged headlong into some political activity with nothing but an inchoate emotionalism to bring to it or to be derived from it. I think that this stems from a misconception of what it means to be a writer or any kind of creative artist. They feel it is something to adopt in the place of actual living, without understanding that art is a by-product of existence.
http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/05/17...
It seems writers are no longer thought of as creators, artists, even artisans, they are manufacturers of product in a marketing driven business. Even back as far as 1949.
The notable exception being the university presses and some of the small, privately owned publishers, although I will give DAW credit for not rushing at least one of their authors. But they know he's gold.