You’re right, writers need as few barriers to writing as possible. However, when it comes to me myself personally, I only want to write stories that say something, that explore ideas, that offer well-thought-out opinions. I read so much stuff that leaves me thinking “Why did they bother?” and I don’t ever want a reader of mine having that thought. So much ‘genre’ work (including ‘literature’) is like that – grinding through a formula or frothing out overblown metaphors for no obvious reason other than entertainment of the lowest-common-denominator kind.

I’m a sci-fi writer for the same reason I believe writers should say something worth saying. It is a genre which explores and delves and lays bare. At its best, it is sublime. Writers like J.G. Ballard, Brian Aldiss, Ray Bradbury Ursula le Guinn and others are examples of what I mean. Today, such writers seem thin on the ground. Gene Wolfe is an exception that springs to mind (along with ‘literary’ writers like Gore Vidal and Margaret Atwood when they write sci-fi.)

At its worst, sci-fi is as guilty as all the other genres. (God knows there are some awful offerings out there in the space opera, cyberpunk, and steampunk sub-genres.) But, while fantasy, and chick lit, and crime, and so on might throw up a book that says something important once in a blue moon, sci-fi is where it happens regularly – or it should be.

Other writers can keep on saying nothing and writing fun thrillers or romances that mean nothing (and selling in the millions!) but I can’t do that. I need to think that what I’m doing isn’t just ephemeral entertainment.

The reason it bothers me is that I could see it as an excuse not to write. How many times have we as writers sat down and just written for the joy of exploring an idea? Not with any goal in mind, not with any intent to educate or elucidate, but simply to discover?

What if Picasso had stuck to the classic style, and never explored abstract art? He created something wild with the intent to discover, and then explored that new world, and in doing so created a whole new way of painting.

Writers need to be free to explore, without the need to produce something “valid” or “worthwhile”. The creative mind should work without boundaries, without expectations.

If you don’t write it, how do you know whether it’s important or not?