See what's become of me

[muckefuck]

Once again, there is discord within the ranks of the Science Fiction Writers' Association. And once again, I've gone and read up on it much more than I needed to. I don't recommend you do the same. The arguments aren't very edifying (same old garbled nonsense confusing editorial oversight with censorship and failing to grasp that the house organ of a professional organisation is not the same thing as New Worlds, let alone the world at large) and the pièce de resistance is a petition so wrongheaded and ill-composed that it's appalling to think anyone involved in it has ever been paid for copy in their lives. Reading the list of signatories is simply depressing. They include some Very Big Names, leading to some public teeth-gnashing about heroes falling off pedestals and such.

Even more depressing is the fact that these writers, in their time (someone calculated their median age at about 73), were among the more progressive voices in SF/F. So if there's any insight I've managed to extract from this clusterfuck, it's regarding the perils of ossifying in my views. I know, much easier said than done--particularly if I've got any ambitions of being preemptive about it and not waiting for a dozen people to tell me it's time to go home and sleep off my stupor.

Comments

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

discord within the ranks of the Science Fiction Writers' Association

Pointers? :-)

Honestly? I think it's really, really difficult not to ossify as one ages. I work with teenagers and I literally have to dig my nails into my palms to stop myself from saying, Why, Sonny, when I was your age...

[lhn.livejournal.com]

I also suspect that the attempt to avoid it is sort of like someone young trying to be very grown up: sometimes it may be productive or useful practice, other times it's purely ridiculous, but it will never be mistakable for the genuine article.

And it's not as if aligning with the young makes you more likely to be right or wrong per se. Among other things: which young?

[mlr.livejournal.com]

Not that I disagree, but I think it's very important to try to 'stay young' for lack of better words. In other words: try new things, travel as much as you can, listen to unfamiliar music, read new authors, make new friends, and occasionally learn something new.