I’ve never really understood the apprehension (and even malice) between “serious” literature and popular (commercial) literature. Each worries about letting the other bleed into it. One worries about becoming the crude property of the masses. The other worries about becoming the exclusive property of pretension.
I think it was Steven King who wrote that literary writing was worrying about how you feel about the work and popular writing was worrying about how others feel about the work and both are about as selfish as one another. I think literary writing can easily become worrying about what a select group of “others” think about the work.
Why not just put them both together? Is that so wrong? The boundaries are pretty artificial anyway (like the academy awards…but no statues). Imagine popular fiction that had real depth. Imagine literature that was interesting (or rather, imagine literature that caught your interest without yelling at you to do a thousand pushups before showing you any of the goods).
One’s all foreplay and the other is messy and premature.
A happy, healthy medium, that’s what I say.
Joshua Alan Doetsch 
Wow, this is exactly what you were saying to Wil last night. You had posted it a day earlier. Damn me for not reading LJ in a few days. Damn me!
I think the fact that you are still talking to him after last night bumps you toward sainthood, and redeems you from this damnation. Just my opinion – one which I already told him, so this won’t come as a surprise if he reads it. Have a good night! Oh, I mean Wil, not Josh – Josh didn’t do anything bad to you that I am aware of, but if he did let me know and I’ll get him for you.
Thanks Torrie, and thanks for talking to Wil, you didn’t need to, but I kinda needed a day to think through the night, and all that jazz. Rest assured that all will be okay. I am just a fragile little thing. That is what I have learned.