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Fantasy Fiction Field, June 1944

Page 20

How much do I write? Almost a million words a year. But not nearly all fiction. I do almost every kind of writing there is. No doubt I'd rank as a hack writer and how! As I see it, we have two rodas to choose, either we will do all the kinds of writing there are to do, or we will have to do something else besides write for a living, and that means will lose out completely as writers.
Very few writers can keep alive their talents while spending their major hours and efforts on another job. When one is very young, which the pristine fire, he can burn the midnight oil after working hours and achieve some creditable writing, but the time will come and soon when he must either give up his writing ambitions or debouch on an all-time writing career.
Nearly fifteen years ago I discovered that to live well by one's writing, and to keep the talents warm and fluid, one must write everything and sneer at nothing however lowly that would turn a dime with the typewriter.
I am a great lover of science fiction and fantasy fiction. It depicts man's highest reachs toward perfection. Any changes for the better in civilization have been first plowed out of the future by science and fantastic fiction. A great politician might not be a fiction writer, but he would use the processes of fiction when he conceives a better world, a peace assuring world, without want and without intollerance. 
We still live in an age of superstition and ignorance. Little more than a hundred years ago, old women were being tortured as witches; innocent young girls were burned at the stake. 
Most of us think that superstition and ignorance just about ended with witchcraft. That is far from the truth. We are still ruled by superstition and ignorance and intolerance. It is evident almost everything, and it is found in the very persons who think themselves very tolerant. 
The seeds of a third World War are already being planted. We cannot talk about that now. We will talk about it and see it after the peace comes - what peace there is with all the intolerance and bigotry waiting to leap out viciously as soon as the national emergency passes.
Peace can come only when all nations are under one great government and when all peoples adjust their numbers to their national resources. Internal peace -- internecine peace -- can come only when we are so organized that a group or a few cannot control the wealth and property and industry for their personal aggrandizement and profit.
Happiness and contentment will come for human individuals with certainty only when the morality and laws of nations and society become tolerant and naturally founded. The Idea of "sin" must be abandoned. The shame attached to the human body must be overcome completely. Artificial sex stimuli must be educated out of society. All sex repression must be overcome by entirely new attitudes and laws regarding sex, marriage, courtship, incest, etc. 
This is no new discovery of mine. I have studied and search for many years, and I find what all the others do if they are honest. 
The average man of today is a child filled with savage notions concerning right and wrong. He is guilty of senseless jealousies and horrors concerning sex that could not reside in a racial unit of true intelligence.

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How much do I write? Almost a million words a year. But not nearly all fiction. I do almost every kind of writing there is. No doubt I'd rank as a hack writer and how! As I see it, we have two rodas to choose, either we will do all the kinds of writing there are to do, or we will have to do something else besides write for a living, and that means will lose out completely as writers. Very few writers can keep alive their talents while spending their major hours and efforts on another job. When one is very young, which the pristine fire, he can burn the midnight oil after working hours and achieve some creditable writing, but the time will come and soon when he must either give up his writing ambitions or debouch on an all-time writing career. Nearly fifteen years ago I discovered that to live well by one's writing, and to keep the talents warm and fluid, one must write everything and sneer at nothing however lowly that would turn a dime with the typewriter. I am a great lover of science fiction and fantasy fiction. It depicts man's highest reachs toward perfection. Any changes for the better in civilization have been first plowed out of the future by science and fantastic fiction. A great politician might not be a fiction writer, but he would use the processes of fiction when he conceives a better world, a peace assuring world, without want and without intollerance. We still live in an age of superstition and ignorance. Little more than a hundred years ago, old women were being tortured as witches; innocent young girls were burned at the stake. Most of us think that superstition and ignorance just about ended with witchcraft. That is far from the truth. We are still ruled by superstition and ignorance and intolerance. It is evident almost everything, and it is found in the very persons who think themselves very tolerant. The seeds of a third World War are already being planted. We cannot talk about that now. We will talk about it and see it after the peace comes - what peace there is with all the intolerance and bigotry waiting to leap out viciously as soon as the national emergency passes. Peace can come only when all nations are under one great government and when all peoples adjust their numbers to their national resources. Internal peace -- internecine peace -- can come only when we are so organized that a group or a few cannot control the wealth and property and industry for their personal aggrandizement and profit. Happiness and contentment will come for human individuals with certainty only when the morality and laws of nations and society become tolerant and naturally founded. The Idea of "sin" must be abandoned. The shame attached to the human body must be overcome completely. Artificial sex stimuli must be educated out of society. All sex repression must be overcome by entirely new attitudes and laws regarding sex, marriage, courtship, incest, etc. This is no new discovery of mine. I have studied and search for many years, and I find what all the others do if they are honest. The average man of today is a child filled with savage notions concerning right and wrong. He is guilty of senseless jealousies and horrors concerning sex that could not reside in a racial unit of true intelligence.