Okay, so...to back up and reiterate other points I've already made:
1. I'm very well aware of that. I wrote a fair amount of fic before I started working on my own projects and then went to grad school, which I mentioned upthread.
2. I have no problem with people writing whatever their little hearts desire as long as they don't insist that I read it. (It's sort of my attitude toward sex and religion, too. I don't care what you do in the privacy of your own bedroom or church, nor do I want to know. On the rare occasion that I'm curious about something, I'll ask. As long as you don't try to force your orientation/practices/etc on me, we're good. I said that upthread as well.)
3. Grad school changed a lot for me, one notable thing being my tolerance for fic.
4. I'm an anomaly.
Re: point #1, not only am I well aware of that, I also, in a previous life, argued your point in a conversation very similar to this one. I'm not saying that my way is the only way (see points #2 and #4). I am saying that a helluva lot of people spend their lives writing other people's characters and never go out and try anything more, and I think that's a crying shame. It's like riding around on a bike your whole life because you're afraid to try driving the car. It's a wasted opportunity, even if it's only to discover that there are good reasons why the bike might be better for you. I have never said, "Thou Shalt Only Write Original Fiction" (see point #2). For me, it's vastly more interesting and fun; for you it's not. That is fine. At least you gave it a try.
Basically I'm saying that original does not necessarily equal worthier in some people's value systems
I haven't said anything to the contrary! (Also, "value systems"? All I've done is express my opinion, plainly state several times that I'm the square peg that doesn't fit into the round hole, and attempt to explain why.) ::beats head against desk very very hard::
Okay, so there's a short story/flash fiction/etc. market out there, somewhere, but my understanding is that it's pretty dead.
Not so. I have friends from grad school who sell stuff all the time, and flash is, for reasons beyond my comprehension (though let me state very clearly that I don't care if other people write it) the very hot thing right now.
I would also point out that publishers and agents know what they want for a reason. Everyone I've spoken to or heard on a panel (and I just heard a whole helluva lot of them the other week) talks about how their book was so much better by the time it went to press than it was when they got the agent/book deal, and that's because you can almost never really see your own work objectively until you've had some distance from it, and because these people work with books every day and love them and know what makes them good or not. If an agent or an editor starts telling you to turn your book into something you very strongly feel it's not, you have the wrong agent or editor. I am well aware that my book is going to need edits once I find an agent and possibly also once it finds a publisher. That's how it works and I want it to be as good as it can possibly be. (Right now it's as good as I can make it on my own, and the agent/editor are there to help me get it the rest of the way.)
The idea that these people take books and turn them into something that doesn't resemble the author's original intent is the exception, not the rule, and often the product of working with disreputable folks. (And having recently read books by two friends, one self-published and one pubbed through a very small press, I can only say that they both had great concepts and pretty good execution, but really would have benefited from editorial input--the villain in one, for instance, needed some serious beefing up--and that the very small press is clearly very small for a reason, because the editor there isn't worth the space she takes up, and the fact that she allowed my friend's book to go out as it did made me want to cry, because it wouldn't have taken much to whip it into shape.)
no subject
Okay, so...to back up and reiterate other points I've already made:
1. I'm very well aware of that. I wrote a fair amount of fic before I started working on my own projects and then went to grad school, which I mentioned upthread.
2. I have no problem with people writing whatever their little hearts desire as long as they don't insist that I read it. (It's sort of my attitude toward sex and religion, too. I don't care what you do in the privacy of your own bedroom or church, nor do I want to know. On the rare occasion that I'm curious about something, I'll ask. As long as you don't try to force your orientation/practices/etc on me, we're good. I said that upthread as well.)
3. Grad school changed a lot for me, one notable thing being my tolerance for fic.
4. I'm an anomaly.
Re: point #1, not only am I well aware of that, I also, in a previous life, argued your point in a conversation very similar to this one. I'm not saying that my way is the only way (see points #2 and #4). I am saying that a helluva lot of people spend their lives writing other people's characters and never go out and try anything more, and I think that's a crying shame. It's like riding around on a bike your whole life because you're afraid to try driving the car. It's a wasted opportunity, even if it's only to discover that there are good reasons why the bike might be better for you. I have never said, "Thou Shalt Only Write Original Fiction" (see point #2). For me, it's vastly more interesting and fun; for you it's not. That is fine. At least you gave it a try.
Basically I'm saying that original does not necessarily equal worthier in some people's value systems
I haven't said anything to the contrary! (Also, "value systems"? All I've done is express my opinion, plainly state several times that I'm the square peg that doesn't fit into the round hole, and attempt to explain why.) ::beats head against desk very very hard::
Okay, so there's a short story/flash fiction/etc. market out there, somewhere, but my understanding is that it's pretty dead.
Not so. I have friends from grad school who sell stuff all the time, and flash is, for reasons beyond my comprehension (though let me state very clearly that I don't care if other people write it) the very hot thing right now.
I would also point out that publishers and agents know what they want for a reason. Everyone I've spoken to or heard on a panel (and I just heard a whole helluva lot of them the other week) talks about how their book was so much better by the time it went to press than it was when they got the agent/book deal, and that's because you can almost never really see your own work objectively until you've had some distance from it, and because these people work with books every day and love them and know what makes them good or not. If an agent or an editor starts telling you to turn your book into something you very strongly feel it's not, you have the wrong agent or editor. I am well aware that my book is going to need edits once I find an agent and possibly also once it finds a publisher. That's how it works and I want it to be as good as it can possibly be. (Right now it's as good as I can make it on my own, and the agent/editor are there to help me get it the rest of the way.)
The idea that these people take books and turn them into something that doesn't resemble the author's original intent is the exception, not the rule, and often the product of working with disreputable folks. (And having recently read books by two friends, one self-published and one pubbed through a very small press, I can only say that they both had great concepts and pretty good execution, but really would have benefited from editorial input--the villain in one, for instance, needed some serious beefing up--and that the very small press is clearly very small for a reason, because the editor there isn't worth the space she takes up, and the fact that she allowed my friend's book to go out as it did made me want to cry, because it wouldn't have taken much to whip it into shape.)
Okay, sorry, that just hit a nerve.
Likewise.