I think a shitty writer is a shitty writer, but when you know you're bad and make no effort to improve your craft because you're drawing a steady paycheck yer a hack.
Yeah that's a good way of putting it. Same goes for an artist, or any person making a living in the creative arts. Everybody sucked at some point, right? Its the schmucks who go right on sucking with no apparent attempts at self-improvement.
I can't say I've ever seen you suck, Mike, but since I have been absorbing a lot of Powers in a short period of time I can say that I have watched the style grow and develope.
So I think you are safe from being labeled a hack.
Some writers arent as good as others sure, but what takes a writer from sucking to "hacking"?
Im just waiting for my label to come along and need to get more familiar with such titles Though I'll settle for "that mythology guy" happily
i've already labeld you as that 'mythology guy'
i think a hack is when they supposedly 'create' a new book and its so obvious that its a current seller with a different name on it.
(oh really can't wait for ares now. you got me all sucked onto this mythology stuff, thank you so much! )
Tessana!?!
A hack isn't neccesarily a bad writer. Traditionally a hack is someone who sacrificed artisitic integrity for a pay check. Someone who churns out words by yard (like a taxi driver who takes you around the block, thus a "Hack" which is a slang term for a cabby)
People who have been considered hacks are sometimes considered otherwise through the long lens of history. Charles Dickens bore the moniker, as did A. Conan Doyle... both of whom where paid by the word and were the first practitioners of what some now call "De-compression". Other famous "Hack" writers: Dashiel Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Ian Fleming to name a few.
Hmmm... this is the type of thing that drives me nuts. The word has a meaning. even if 90 people out of 100 misuse the word, the meaning hasn't changed. Those people, forgive me, simply appear poorly educated or willfully ignorant. Words adapt over time, inarguably, but deliberately disregarding the meaning of words, and the ideas behind them is nothing short of a blight on the intelligence of the species. I don't want to get off on a rant here, but...
A hack isn't neccesarily a bad writer. Traditionally a hack is someone who sacrificed artisitic integrity for a pay check. Someone who churns out words by yard (like a taxi driver who takes you around the block, thus a "Hack" which is a slang term for a cabby)
That's what I consider a hack to be, especially where SUPER unoriginality with no merit is concerned.
Though I'll settle for "that mythology guy" happily
)
YOU are fucking hardcore.
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