I hate to sound like a certain pompus know-it-all that 
lurks around ever corner of the list,  but I'll have to 
shoot down that idea.  I can promise you I want deliver 
this belief in a scarcatic overtone, like said person 
would.

Gee, I wonder who the *hell* you could be talking about. <Lurker
rolls his eyes>

By the way, I'm not "pompous". I'm loud and opinionated. There's a
huge difference; it takes a certain amount of intelligence to discern
it. Nor am I a know-it-all, nor have I ever claimed to be one. I know
more about some things, less about others. Nobody knows everything,
and I'd be the last person to claim to do so.

But this is all beside the point, so let's get to the brass
tacks...after all, the FFML is not a place for people to air out
personal grudges...

If you wrote for a living, why would you give away 
ideas and time for free?  That would be like a farmer 
growing crops and giving them away for free because it 
made him feel good.  True enough, it is a kind act; but 
eventually he'd go broke.  

I'm afraid it's *not* like a farmer giving away crops for free,
actually.

Let's take a professional writer, who writes science fiction short
stories. Alien encounters, high-tech penal colonies, space
exploration, planetary invasions, that sort of thing.

Now, let's say this same writer gets an idea for a great Evangelion
story.

Some people like to give away ideas they don't have time to deal
with. Others, like myself, prefer not to. Why? Simply put, when you
have an idea, and you want to see it done a certain way, the *only*
way that's going to happen is if you write it yourself.

So this writer sets to work on the Evangelion story. He likes what
he's written.

Oh, but wait, he can't publish this. Evangelion is copyrighted. He'd
get sued out the kazoo. Bah. But he's had such a great time writing
this story, it'd be a shame to let it go to waste.

So he posts it on the Internet. He makes no money from writing it,
because it's now a nonprofit work. However, he has gained a little
bit more writing experience, and his work on this particular short
piece may give him an inspiration for a new original story that he
can have published.

He has enjoyed writing this story, he has learned something new from
it, he has contributed to fandom, and it hasn't taken much time away
from his professional writing endeavors. So nobody has taken a loss
here. 

However, you did make a good point about some of the 
writers here.   With a little time and patients some of 
the exceptional fik'ers (Fanfic writers *just a term I 

That's quite an...interesting term you have there. Be careful not to
mistype a 'u' instead of an 'i' if you actually tend to use this
actively; you don't want to go around randomly flaming people for no
real reason, do you?

use*) could become good writers.  I'm willing to bet 
there are a few people in here that are working on 
maybe a novel, screenplay, or pilot idea.  I know I've 
been doing that for the past few years.  Writting 
Fanfics is my escape from my screenplay's - writer's 
block.  Pushing out a story based on another story is 
just as easy as it can be hard.  (Let that bounce 
around in your head for a while)

Sorry, pointless rhetoric doesn't bounce. It just squelches on the
bottom and sticks there like chewing gum in a movie theater.

This is a place you're supposed to be able to go to 
sharpen your writting skills.  So inspiring writers 
should be able to get that helpful push in the 
direction of improvement.  So there is a chance that a 
few of us amatures could someday be professionals.  

Actually, *this* is a place for people to swap stories based on their
favorite anime and manga series. It just happens to have the added
bonus of helping sharpen those writing skills. I'd point out that
there are people posting stories here who have *no* writing skills,
and probably never will. But, that'd be pompous and sarcastic,
wouldn't it? Oh, dear.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
What kind of Pokemon are you?
How do you do the things you do?
Share with me your secrets deep inside...
What kind of Pokemon are you?
Are you loyal through and through?
And do you have a heart that's true?
What kind of Pokemon are you?

-The Eternal Lost Lurker
(the 666th Pokemon)

"Pokemon, getto daze!"
-------------------------------------------------------------------