<story><title>Isaac Asimov on How to Be Prolific</title><url>http://briangroat.com/2016/10/26/asimov-on-how-to-be-prolific/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>laacz</author><text>I must say &amp;quot;Thank you&amp;quot;. Thank you, Asimov, for my language skills.&lt;p&gt;I started reading Asimov in my native language (Latvian) until I run out of it. It was late 80s. Then I had to work on my Russian reading skills in order to read everything else USSR had to provide from Asimov. Then I read everything libraries in Riga had on sci-fi.&lt;p&gt;And when 90s arrived, I accidentally got a hold of few Asimov books in English. I remember vividly the nights I spent with his book on the left side and English dictionary on the right one. Underlining and writing words and page numbers of words I coulnd&amp;#x27;t find just to return to them later when context would be much cleaner. Ever so funny struggle with idioms and cultural references I couldn&amp;#x27;t possibly understand. There was no internet to look that stuff up.&lt;p&gt;So, yes. Thank you, sci-fi in general and Asimov in particular for motivation and opportunity to learn one of basic life skills - ability to read and understand foreign language better than school could teach.</text></comment>
<story><title>Isaac Asimov on How to Be Prolific</title><url>http://briangroat.com/2016/10/26/asimov-on-how-to-be-prolific/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>michaelpinto</author><text>Something to keep in mind is that Asimov was very much a product of the age of pulp magazines, so early on in his career he was paid by the word for his work.&lt;p&gt;A side geek note: If you were active in NYC fandom from say the 50s on chances were very good that you would actually get to see Isaac in person at many local science fiction conventions. For some reason he disliked air travel, and would show up at almost any local convention that he was invited to.&lt;p&gt;If you want to read a really good book on being a geek from the depression era to about the 50s I would highly recommend reading The Way the Future Was by rederik Pohl.</text></comment>