Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 13:10:51 -0400
From: Ted White <twhite8 at cox.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: [wsfa-forum] Hugo nominees
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

Elspeth Kovar wrote:

>  Michael Walsh wrote:
>
> > On Fri, Mar 21, 2008 at 10:22 AM, Neil Ottenstein
> > <nottenst at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Isn't there some sort of contradiction here with John Scalzi
> >> being nominated in both these categories?
> >
> > No.
> >
> > To quote Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Managing Editor at Tor Books and
> > past = Capclave Fan GoH (along with Teresa Nielsen Hayden):
> >
> > " "pro" and "fan" are terms for things that we do, not things that
> > we = are." <http://pnh.livejournal.com/34338.html>
> >
> > mjw
>
>  And, Michael and his software making a mess of URLs aside, Scalzi
>  deserved to be nominated in both categories.  I asked him myself
>  about how he managed to both write fiction and write a blog and his
>  response was the first that I've ever heard that made sense: they
>  were two different things that he does.
>
>  He's a professional writer.
>
>  He's someone who natters along about random things in his blog.
>
>  He uses the one to distract him or give him a break for the other.
>
>  As a professional he doesn't tape bacon to the cat.  As a person he
>  does. And I'm really, really glad it wasn't my cat: she's a semi-long
>  hair.  I love his work.  I'll kill him if he comes near my cat.
>
>  I think he deserves to be nominated in both categories.  I know that
>  being nominated in both is going to cause him a lot of grief.  And
>  that he knew that going into it but that it was one of those things
>  that had to be done.

Elspeth, this is hardly a unique situation.  I won the Fan Writer Hugo
at the height of my professional writing career (several books a year)
because I was also an active fan.  I didn't just write a blog.  I put
out fanzines and was a major contributor to a number of others.  I
hosted the NYC Fanoclasts, and co-chaired a Worldcon.  It is not at all
hard to be both a fan and a pro; most pros have other hobbies, after
all.  And it's true that there can be little or no conflict between the
two.  And my model was Bob (Wilson) Tucker (who was also a good friend,
and the guy who first, many years earlier, directed me to WSFA).
Likewise, my close buddy Terry Carr, who was editing both Ace Specials
and his fanzine, LIGHTHOUSE.  We never had a problem being both fans and
pros.

But the real question is, are blogs *fan* writing?  Or are they the
equivalent of writing a column for your local weekly newspaper, or other
mundane writing activities?   Scalzi's participation in *fandom* appears
to be minimal.  Isn't he using his blog as many pros do, to talk to his
readers?  Cultivating your own "fan base" is hardly the same thing as
being a "fan writer," after all.

--Ted White