Done up in Twitter form, and archived here for posterity.
1. I have some people snarking at my piece about the writing in the Trump era by noting (say) Solzhenitsyn managing to write in Russia…
— John Scalzi (@scalzi) October 5, 2017
2. The argument there, presumably, being that if he could do it, I should just shut up about my troubles, SNOWFLAKE. Okay, but…
— John Scalzi (@scalzi) October 5, 2017
3. Let's note that it took Solzhenitsyn a decade to write The Gulag Archipelago, his most noted work, and another five years to publish…
— John Scalzi (@scalzi) October 5, 2017
4. So perhaps he's in fact a very fine example of how an awful political environment will slow down writing and make it harder to work.
— John Scalzi (@scalzi) October 5, 2017
5. The issue isn't if people CAN create in bad times. Of course they can, and do. The question is how much art is slowed or not realized…
— John Scalzi (@scalzi) October 5, 2017
6. … because creatives are using brain cycles to deal with a horrible reality they can't avoid: War, poverty, political repression, etc.
— John Scalzi (@scalzi) October 5, 2017
7. I'm guessing that nearly all creatives who had to write during strife would've preferred to have those stolen brain cycles back for art.
— John Scalzi (@scalzi) October 5, 2017
8. I'm indeed writing through the Trump era, slower than I'd like, but writing anyway. But I'd like my stolen brain cycles back, too.
— John Scalzi (@scalzi) October 5, 2017
9, Thus the irony of trying to use Solzhenitsyn as a cudgel here. I wonder what and how much more we could have had, had he lacked duress.
— John Scalzi (@scalzi) October 5, 2017
10. So, yeah. Silly argument. Just another variation of "shut up and write, you monkey." Well, I'll write. But I won't shut up.
Done.
— John Scalzi (@scalzi) October 5, 2017
PS: The piece this is a follow up to is here, if you’ve not already read it.