Let me say first off, forgive the rant. But I am tired of hearing people say this writer or that writer sold out. I heard someone say it about Stephanie Meyer of Twilight fame the other day. Look, in order to sell out you have to be writing something far below what you could write and doing it for fame and fortune. Isn’t that what “selling out” means? But many writers who people say are selling-out aren’t selling-out at all. They’re writing what they can write. A lot of them feel passionate about what they write. How is that selling out?
You and I might not think what they write is very good. Or it might not appeal to you or me for other reasons. Of course, all of that is subjective. You might love something that I don’t and I might love something that you don’t, but the only writers that I consider sell-outs are those who are only writing what they write for money, career etc… That’s it. They have no real love for their writing, or the craft and art, no desire to write the best they can, and so on. Those are sell-outs. Someone who sells a lot of books writing in a popular genre usually isn’t a sell-out. They’re just writing what they can write--like the rest of us.
Or so I think today.
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3 comments:
Hear. Hear.
Well said, Brian. And exactly right, I think.
I can't even think of a writer who doesn't write for the sake of writing... I think "sell outs" are pretty darn rare.
Thanks for the comments. I think they're pretty rare, too, Lisa.
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