SF is formula writing. If you stick to the formula, no matter your
race, if you follow the formula and you write well, you will be
published. But to me, we are on the threshold of a new medium here.
(Say "Duh!") Here? Yes. Here. On your own site, in this group.
Ask yourself: Are you writing because you write? I mean, are you
compulsive about it? Really, traditional paper "publishing" is an
increasingly less critical part of the picture. Don't stop writing
because you think you will not get published. Keep it up. Share.
Don't think you are going to become wealthy by hitting the writing
bingo. If you write, do it. More.
Very respectfully
jivajiva (President Club Services)
--- In SciFiNoir_Lit@yahoogroups.com, "Chris Hayden" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>
> (Serious as you and me define it is irrelevant.
>
> Let's cut to the chase here--most genre fiction is written to the
> lowest common denominator--for people who scan rather than read. It
> is like this because it is descended from that fiction that
appeared
> in the pulps--which, according to many publishers and editors, had
to
> reach "14 year old cretins in Kansas City"
>
> It has never completely outgrown this.
>
> Serious literature is what is called literary fiction and is
>
> Often, but not always, written by academics.
> It contains learned cultural references
> The style is dense, or non standard or both and often requires re
> reading and deep perusal and is concerned with realistic and
> philsophical themes.
> Generally it is literature that has been around a long time and has
> stood the test of time.
>
> The Iliad would make it. Beowulf would make it. Gilgamesh would
> make it. Poe makes it.
>
> Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings don't make it.
>
> Dracula makes it barely on some lists primarily because it has been
> around, oft adapted and has deep psychological subtexts.
>
>
> Edward Jones, John Edgar Wideman, Toni Morrison, some Walter
Moseley,
> Junot Diaz (whose latest work contains many SF references)--writers
> whose work is published in literary journals like Calaloo. Writers
> that are so anointed by the literary crowd or Michiko Kakutani, the
> literary proctologist.
>
> I write SF--one of my complaints with it is that I usually have to
> write down when I do it and people who like my serious work don't
> care for it.
>
> A series of short pieces I wrote about the sickness and death of my
> mother have been praised by some of the literary folk. A series of
> short pieces I wrote aout 21st century digital gangstas doesn't.
>
> Come on, now. The same thing goes on in genre fiction--all those
> Star Wars books is not SF and Phillip K. Dick is.
>
> --- In SciFiNoir_Lit@yahoogroups.com, "sancochojo" <mccartjf@>
> wrote:
> >
> > We are talking about living authors...I know some you listed are
> alive
> > but I'm talking present authors that will have the ability to
gain
> new
> > readers and not from old great works.
> >
> > I'm not also speaking of serious as you define but a vast variety
of
> > Genres. That is what is lacking in my opinion. Thats where you
get
> > the new creative and free thinkers by stepping out of those
> boundaries .
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
