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Tycho, v. 1, issue 2, November 1942
Page 4
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Be a Hack and Starve By Fortier "WHAT THE dickens? And I suppose this pain where there isn't much else is all imagination? I starve anyway, so why not try raking in a few chips?" Moe Pann speaking up there. He wants to become a writer. He hasn't been doing well, so he's turning to what dozens of other amateurs have advised him -- turning to what he has reasoned to be a good idea: become a hack and sell. Become a hack and starve is more like it. You can't get into the pros unless you have something new, a thing entirely different, to offer. That's ironical, my telling you what to do. I haven'y any checks to prove it -- nope, but my results are a lot better when I try to become a copy of every selling hack in the field. Don't forget, those hacks had something a little new to offer when they first cracked. Today they might be all a composite of boresome sameness. You want to hit that lovely field of mediochrity which makes not-straw. Alright -- but don't become a hack to do it. When you try to pound out hack styff, it's a certainty more-or-less that the editor's going to paw it aside. He gets tired of reading the same thing all the time with nothing new. He wants you, not a composite of every hack that sells. In an article awhile back, it was said to hack out material. A re-reading will shot you that it did not say to become a hack. Hacks have three things, all of which you haven't if you're an amateur: smoothness, name and slant. They hack off a trite plot, but they know to which mag it will sell to no other; you don't know this. You haven't a name to keep leading the editor onward. You aren't anywhere as smooth in treatment. If it's smoothness you want, try pounding out columns and/or articles for fanzines. Maybe they won't be used, but they will develop smoothness. If you want to sell, be new and try to slant. You'll get your chips. And a name soon enough. [image] Fantasite 2405 1st avenue S ~MPLS~
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Be a Hack and Starve By Fortier "WHAT THE dickens? And I suppose this pain where there isn't much else is all imagination? I starve anyway, so why not try raking in a few chips?" Moe Pann speaking up there. He wants to become a writer. He hasn't been doing well, so he's turning to what dozens of other amateurs have advised him -- turning to what he has reasoned to be a good idea: become a hack and sell. Become a hack and starve is more like it. You can't get into the pros unless you have something new, a thing entirely different, to offer. That's ironical, my telling you what to do. I haven'y any checks to prove it -- nope, but my results are a lot better when I try to become a copy of every selling hack in the field. Don't forget, those hacks had something a little new to offer when they first cracked. Today they might be all a composite of boresome sameness. You want to hit that lovely field of mediochrity which makes not-straw. Alright -- but don't become a hack to do it. When you try to pound out hack styff, it's a certainty more-or-less that the editor's going to paw it aside. He gets tired of reading the same thing all the time with nothing new. He wants you, not a composite of every hack that sells. In an article awhile back, it was said to hack out material. A re-reading will shot you that it did not say to become a hack. Hacks have three things, all of which you haven't if you're an amateur: smoothness, name and slant. They hack off a trite plot, but they know to which mag it will sell to no other; you don't know this. You haven't a name to keep leading the editor onward. You aren't anywhere as smooth in treatment. If it's smoothness you want, try pounding out columns and/or articles for fanzines. Maybe they won't be used, but they will develop smoothness. If you want to sell, be new and try to slant. You'll get your chips. And a name soon enough. [image] Fantasite 2405 1st avenue S ~MPLS~
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