Part of what I do for a living is copywriting – advertising copy, search-engine-friendly website copy, html email spam copy, branding… etc etc – that sort of commercial writing. And some of it IS creative, because one of the ways to hook a reader into reading more about what you're selling is to intrigue them. … But is that 'creative writing'?

I also MUDded for about 10 years (stopped about 7 years ago), and I miss 'performance writing' for want of a better name. I have some writer friends (published and unpublished) who write really engaging fiction. But before they come up with the drafts that they're more or less happy with / not horribly ashamed to show around, they polish, polish, polish.

In 'performance writing' in MUDs, you can't do that. There isn't the time, and you can't 'take it back'. It has to be as fluid, elegant and *paced* as you can make it, in the medium in which it lives. Perhaps the closest equivalent is a poet being called upon to compose something decent on the spot. Whatever it is, I miss it dearly.

XD Sorry about the ramble, I seem to have lost my point somewhere along the way…

There are a lot of things that need to be changed in academics, and I think that the main one is the terminal degree requirements. I'm really frustrated at the MFA stuff right now and don't really want to get a Ph.D. yet (part of that stems from just finishing my Master's last month, too). I prefer creative writing to literary criticism, but I'll only ever get paid as a full professor with a Ph.D. It's frustrating. I would like it if there were requirements for academic terminal degrees set at a credit hour total of post-graduate studies from accredited universities and a dissertation (even a creative dissertation) before a degree were handed out and it were just a generic Doctoral degree with the dissertation being the focus/specialization. Then we'd be in better shape, and there would be, I think, fewer disgruntled freshly minted academics.

But then there's the argument for too many Ph.D.s being handed out already with too few jobs for them to take, so there are practical flaws there, too.

Either way, there are flaws in the system that need to be worked out on every level, and I say we start with pretense and snobbery. Making academics an atmosphere where ideas can be shared no matter what they are is the first step to developing a better academy.

Heh, but that's neither here nor there, is it?

It's true that there is a lot of chaff out there on the internet, but there are also a lot of very literate, very talented writers that express their ideas extremely well. I don't automatically assume that a blogger will be the next Hemingway, Shakespeare, Barry, Mises or Hawking, but writing a blog doesn't preclude the possibility.

It's a bit like Anton Ego's criticism of Remy's cooking in Ratatouille: "A great cook (writer) can come from anywhere".

Oh, and I can sympathize with the MFA desire; I'd love to go get my own MFA for animation and/or computer graphics, but the state of the art is somewhat less than amenable to such. Of course, if you want to teach (as I do), you need a terminal degree, work experience and other mundane notions of merit notwithstanding. Education is broken on so many levels, it's not even funny.

One of my big pet peeves is when anyone degrades quality writing simply based on it being "new" or a traditionally lower profile medium. I had a contemporary novels class my last semester of graduate school where I heard an interview with Toni Morrison. She had a quote that just got under my skin that went something along the lines of "I write literature; I don't write comic books." That kind of elitism bothers me because I have read a great many comic books that I feel have more literary worth than some of the English canon.

I agree that anyone can write, and I do agree, too, that not everyone can write as well. Even if the quality isn't where those of us who have been trained in writing (you, creative; me, academic) might prefer it, if a person goes through the process of writing and does it regularly, then I see no reason they shouldn't be called a "writer."

Let me be perfectly clear: I've seen good writing appear in almost every setting where writing appears. I'm not claiming a kind of highbrow elitism that declares only the novel is good writing, or that only certain newspapers contain good journalism. Good writing can appear on one person's blog, in a comic book, or a paperback romance novel. It's just when someone writes poorly and lumps that writing together with quality writing that I get annoyed.

I didn't mean to come across as snooty — rather, I think the daily quest of writers from many different backgrounds is to get out good writing, whether it's on their blogs, in their novels, or on their facebook profiles!

My writing is no less valid – nor do I get paid less for it on my steady contracts – than I would if I was writing as a columnist. Yes, I work in my home and don't have to sit at a desk in an office – but the work that I do is just as good (and just as much a "real job") as any other kind of copy or article writing.

And I /love/ what I do. I love blogging (both about Warcraft and about other things) even though THAT doesn't make me much money, and I find that allowing myself the creative writing outlets that I get through various games/stories only enhances the work that I do writing other articles.

So thank you. And hear, hear! I have some people I need to send your way so they can read this! (And sometimes even I need to be reminded that just because I'm not sitting at a newspaper desk or at the top of the bestseller list doesn't mean I'm not a writer.)

I utterly agree. I think writing is writing is writing and I hate how people apply elitism or snobbery to certain types of it. What does it matter if something is writing in a blog style online or in a heavy leather bound tome? It's all about the content, you're quite right, sir.