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Failed Writer's Journey: Writers Need a Hall of Fame [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-01-24

The Hockey and Baseball Hall of Fames have recently announced their latest classes, and it reminds me that writers need a Hall of Fame, not a cannon. It would be so much more entertaining.

First, for those of you who are not sports fans, the point of a Fall of Fame may seem similar to that of a cannon. They are both meant to represent excellence in their fields, excellence worth remembering through the ages. But a Hall of Fame, in reality, is merely vessel for sports fans to yell at each other and the writers and committee members that guard the doors. It’s a ton of fun.

Why the hell isn’t Alex Mogilny in the Hockey Hall of Fame? Why doesn’t the Hockey Hall of Fame use both slots for women contributors and players every year since they started indicting women so late? How is Andy Pettitte a serious candidate for the Baseball Hall of Fame and Mark Buehrle not? Why do we hold the use of performance enhancing drugs against the character of baseball players when Ty Cobb, the worst human being not named Trump or an actual member of the Nazi party, is in the Baseball Hall of Fame? What do you mean wins are a goalie stat, you idiot?

See? Doesn’t that sound like fun?

Imagine. Do you leave Burrows out because he shot Joan Vollmer? (Yes) Octavia Butler was better than anyone in her generation at her peak, but did she produce long enough? (Yes, for the record. Fight me.) Do you punish Hunter Thompson for the use of performance enhancing drugs? If you let in Ezra Pound, does that mean you have to ignore how racist Lovecraft was? Do Patterson and Rowling get in just based on their counting stats (sales) alone? What is the cut off LAR (literature above replacement) for the Hall and does Atwood’s dabbling in sci-fi raise or lower her LAR? Who has to tell Hemmingway he’s overrated and doesn’t make the cut?

See? Isn’t that more fun than boring old arguments about who belongs in the cannon or not? I bet you could even get Stephen A. Smith to yell about it incomprehensibly for at least ten minutes when the next class was announced.

Weekly Word Count

6300 this week. All in the tech abortion novel.

A bit slower than last week. I entered a section where the outline is a bit mush so I am feeling my way through the b-plot a bit more than I probably should be. Still, eight chapters complete out of a planned 28 and decent momentum each week. I probably am going to doom myself by saying this, but I am pretty pleased with the progress. We’ll have to see if the words are any good, but they are still coming at a decent clip.

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