Man Of Letters

Are you a script writer? Maybe a non-fiction writer? Novelist? Essay writer? Copywriter? Uh...Blogger? Why do you have to be any one of these? Can't you just be a writer?

This is British writer Jonathan Raban's main gripe against the new century, as told by Anna Mundow, writing for The Boston Globe.

He seems to take particular joy in being a 'man of letters'. Well, I looked it up a bit, and it seems that it's meant to refer to anyone who doesn't want to ( at the risk of sounding like John Kerry ) end up as a grunt in Iraq.

But I do get the point. Writing is not like building a furnace or assembling a microchip. There's no defined methodology. If anything, writers are rewarded for breaking the mold. So today you have the urge to respond to the latest thesis on middle east politics and neocon principles, put out by the Council on Foreign Relations. Tomorrow you may have the urge to write about spaceage ninja turtles. End of the day, you're still a writer.