Friday, September 04, 2015

"Hey Uncle Stevie, the forest called; they're running out of trees."

Know your meme.

Not our house -- yet.
Another tempest of letters and opining within the bookish teapot: Stephen King reacts to an "unspoken postulate" within literary criticism that "the more one writes, the less remarkable one's work is apt to be." Drew Nellins Smith retorts, with That's Too Much: The Problem With Prolific Writers.

I'm more sympathetic to Smith's argument -- except when I'm not. Jonathan Franzen, whose work I've occasionally enjoyed, is producing at an acceptable rate so far as I'm concerned. Charles Stross is more voluble, and I'd never dream of telling him to slow down.

Write as fast as you can, or care to. But if you're prolific, it's probably best you not expect to be deeply read.

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