xliv - Day 15 - A writer you admire, whether professional or not!

I'm actually quite surprised how complex this seemingly innocuous, simple question is turning out to be. It turns out "admiration" isn't a concept I think is particularly useful in defining my concept of writers.

Let's take a slight detour and define a writer as someone who follows Heinlein's rules of writing. I personally like Robert J. Sawyer's version with an additional rule. To paraphrase: 1) Write something; 2) Finish it; 3) No, seriously, stop messing with it; 4) Submit it; 5) Re-submit it until it's sold; and, 6) Goto 1. (Sawyer has a full version on his site, available HERE)

You may now have an inkling as to why the word "admire" isn't particularly useful in this context. The act of writing with the honest intention of having the work published is often agonizing, meticulous work. We haven't even touched on the utterly humbling experience of putting something out there. In all my reading about writing, I've yet to come across any published author who doesn't make a point of pointing out their pile of rejection slips.

Even for writers I think are doing a disservice to humanity by virtue of what they write, that they've commited to the act of writing itself warrants no small measure of admiration on my part.

None of this leaves you with a workable answer to the question, though.

So: Frank Herbert.

Why? His style was clear, and he was capable of writing intelligently without hiding behind convoluted language. Not to mention being the author of the most recognized work of modern science fiction. He wrote, he wrote well, and he was successful.