LogFAQs > #952957867

Muscles posted...

Why would an author not be an artist?

It's a semantic difference. While writing fiction is a creative endeavor, publishing is a business, so it's not merely a matter of art. You talk about being an aspiring author (and I'm not sure whether that means you aspire to write or whether you've written and aspire to publish) and then get into all of this talk of artistry, which is a largely different subject. The mark of a successful author is sales. They can be hack as an artist (in that they aren't particularly creative or their prose might have issues), but still be a good author.

Conversely, if you get into a discussion of art, things get murkier because art tends to be more subjective. A good case-in-point would be the fact that some people believe Dan Brown is a talented writer while others don't. In short, art is harder to measure, which is why there are so many disagreements about the relative merits of art. And frankly, a person can say that anything is art.

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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.