Somehow, for all my outward pretence of cold-eyed professionalism, all my insistence that writing is simply a job like any other, I\'ve discovered to my surprise and chagrin that there\'s more than that going on around here, that I write as much out of karmic necessity and some inescapable inner need to rededicate my own skills constantly to my-what? My craft? My art? My profession? I wrote these stories because the only way of earning a living I have ever had has been by writing, but mainly, I have to admit, I wrote these stories because I couldn\'t not write them. -Robert Silverberg, from his Introduction.
May they give you pleasure now too.
Writing them, it turns out, was important for me, and even pleasurable, in a curiously complex after-the-fact kind of way.
I\'m glad I wrote them.
They involved me in a lot of hard work, but for me, at least, the results justify the toil.
Well, so be it.
Somehow, for all my outward pretence of cold-eyed professionalism, all my insistence that writing is simply a job like any other, I\'ve discovered to my surprise and chagrin that there\'s more than that going on around here, that I write as much out of karmic necessity and some inescapable inner need to rededicate my own skills constantly to my-what? My craft? My art? My profession? I wrote these stories because the only way of earning a living I have ever had has been by writing, but mainly, I have to admit, I wrote these stories because I couldn\'t not write them
