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Fantasite, v. 2, issue 5, whole 11, May-June 1943
Page 5
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THE FANTASITE...5 GOSTACUS: DOSCII: DESTIMABAT ROSS ROCKLYNNE HIDDEN BEHIND the smoothly printed pages of the stf magazines which glut the newsstands, deep beneath the editorials, beneath the stories, beneath the illustrations, beneath the readers' letters, lies a vast tangle of effort and sheer bungling stupidity and heartache and scrabbling which the average reader does not begin to realize exists. One picks up a stf magazine and reads it with hardly an effort and does not stop to imagine that it is the result of an incredible spiderweb of motions and thoughts and emotions and discarded thoughts which never show on the surface. As an author, I can best illustrate my meaning by revealing some small fraction of the unguessed-at events which occur beyond the pale of the reader. For instance: Who knows what Unguh would say To a friend with a birthday in view? 'Twould likely be something like "uggy-wug-wug", So "uggy-wug-wug" to you! For those of you who remember an ASTOUNDING story of mine called UNGUH MADE A FIRE, I drop an affection tear. The above quatrain was submitted to, and rejected by, the Buzza-Cordova Greeting Card Company, in slightly different form. Later on, I used it as the opening of the aforementioned story, which was rejected also. Much later, at the advice of an agent, I rewrote the story, discarding my beloved quatrain because the agent thought it silly. Perhaps it was. The story appeared "uggy-wug-wug"-less. A story comes on the stands and the reader reads it and does not think: Maybe the author went through hell to write this story. Maybe he was desperate for an idea, and maybe, in his desperation, he sat down at the "typer" and began to type off his thoughts as fast as he could go, hoping to turn up an idea. Maybe he wrote gibberish like this: ...Should I lay this story in modern times on Earth or on another planet, or should I put it in the future when the imagination can be used more....Now in the canals of Mars the water flows toward the equator doubtless and so what lord I can type faster when I ignor punctuations oh the hell with it all no I cant take that attitude. Monday morning I will go up to the mail box with a manuscript I wonder if there will be a mail box chock full of checks I don't think so into the darkness has already been rejected by pohl, undoubtedly, and the only place would be strange stories or maybe science-fiction tapping on this typer may so drive me into a stupor that a story will simply come popping out of this thing that I must call a brain what a hell of a brain no it is a very good brain so it is. I think that 1269 will sell that would be very nice so it would... That was copied verbatim from the middle of a marginless single spaced page and
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THE FANTASITE...5 GOSTACUS: DOSCII: DESTIMABAT ROSS ROCKLYNNE HIDDEN BEHIND the smoothly printed pages of the stf magazines which glut the newsstands, deep beneath the editorials, beneath the stories, beneath the illustrations, beneath the readers' letters, lies a vast tangle of effort and sheer bungling stupidity and heartache and scrabbling which the average reader does not begin to realize exists. One picks up a stf magazine and reads it with hardly an effort and does not stop to imagine that it is the result of an incredible spiderweb of motions and thoughts and emotions and discarded thoughts which never show on the surface. As an author, I can best illustrate my meaning by revealing some small fraction of the unguessed-at events which occur beyond the pale of the reader. For instance: Who knows what Unguh would say To a friend with a birthday in view? 'Twould likely be something like "uggy-wug-wug", So "uggy-wug-wug" to you! For those of you who remember an ASTOUNDING story of mine called UNGUH MADE A FIRE, I drop an affection tear. The above quatrain was submitted to, and rejected by, the Buzza-Cordova Greeting Card Company, in slightly different form. Later on, I used it as the opening of the aforementioned story, which was rejected also. Much later, at the advice of an agent, I rewrote the story, discarding my beloved quatrain because the agent thought it silly. Perhaps it was. The story appeared "uggy-wug-wug"-less. A story comes on the stands and the reader reads it and does not think: Maybe the author went through hell to write this story. Maybe he was desperate for an idea, and maybe, in his desperation, he sat down at the "typer" and began to type off his thoughts as fast as he could go, hoping to turn up an idea. Maybe he wrote gibberish like this: ...Should I lay this story in modern times on Earth or on another planet, or should I put it in the future when the imagination can be used more....Now in the canals of Mars the water flows toward the equator doubtless and so what lord I can type faster when I ignor punctuations oh the hell with it all no I cant take that attitude. Monday morning I will go up to the mail box with a manuscript I wonder if there will be a mail box chock full of checks I don't think so into the darkness has already been rejected by pohl, undoubtedly, and the only place would be strange stories or maybe science-fiction tapping on this typer may so drive me into a stupor that a story will simply come popping out of this thing that I must call a brain what a hell of a brain no it is a very good brain so it is. I think that 1269 will sell that would be very nice so it would... That was copied verbatim from the middle of a marginless single spaced page and
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