Posted by admin on July 17, 2007
7,300 days.
That’s about how long ago I got the best writing Advice I ever received. Advice so simple, so powerful and so profound, that every time I think about it, it humbles me. I’ve never been able to follow it completely, and understand completely that this is the single most important reason I am still an aspiring writer.
Like many would be authors I used to get bogged down in the myth of the writer: that there’s some mysterious alchemical brew of Discipline Inspiration, Talent, and Education that come together in a dark and stormy night in an garret apartment and a writer is created.
Go to any bookstore in the world and you’ll find a whole rack devoted to the Writing which play into this myth.. Plots, characters, format, inspiration, marketing…It’s all covered. All you need is that one, essential THING that we can offer, that you are missing, and you’ll be a successful writer. And nearly every book, article and lecture boils down to the same advice: Sit down, Shut up, and Type.
I don’t think there’s any magic to becoming a writer. The best piece of advice I ever heard came from a lecture by Ray Bradbury I attended in 1986. It was a pat answer to a pat question, one that I’m sure he gets asked nearly every day.
Q: How do you become a writer?
A:: Write every day for a year.
The explanation Bradbury gave was simple. It is impossible to do anything, day in and day out, for a whole year and not get better. Musicians practice, Surgeons Intern, Teacher lecture. And no matter how bad you are at the beginning, no matter how little talent or aptitude you have, you will get better.
I’ve sold articles and had essays published in Student newspapers and magazines. And I’ve entered writing contests and written screenplays. But I’ve never been able to make the leap to professional, because I’ve never given myself time to.
And there’s this hole. It’s part lost opportunity- Even if I become successful, I’ll never be the hot young writer now. I’ll never be the Bret Easton Ellis, or the First Writer of the New Millennium.
That’s not a knock. I’m sure I will be successful. And I am happy. I’m raising two wonderful girls, And I still Love my wonderful wife ( 16 years! Can you believe it?). I’ve put off my writing for the more prosaic goals of education and career.
But I do wonder… What could I have accomplished in the last 7,300 days.
Posted by admin on July 15, 2007
Rogue’s Gallery CD
It was hard not to start this review with some totally lame-O pirate cliche.
I first heard about this disc on NPR, and knew immediately that I had to have it.
Basically, at the urging of Johnny Depp and Gore Verbinski, decided to try to find actual sea chanteys to use in the Pirates of the Caribbean
movie. This led to legendary producer Hal Wilner ( Also of the excellent spoken word CD,Closed on Account of Rabies: Poems and Tales of Edgar Allan Poe
).
This is excellent music for writers. The star-studded cast of singers just let it all hang out and have a blast. Lou Reed, Nick Cave, Sting and Baby Gramps are all standouts. Baby Who?:
Youtube video Here.
Posted by admin on July 14, 2007
No Plot? No Problem!
By Chris Baty
This weeks book is all about Motivation and Discipline.
Chris Baty is the founder of the NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Moth writing competition. Basically, this book is all about overcoming writier’s block, fear of failure, and thinking you stink and getting your first novel finished faster than you ever thought you could.
Granted, even Chris admits that the 50,000 word goal isn’t really a novel, and that by putting aside plotting, style and characterization in favor of silliness and cliche doesn’t mean your novel is going to be any good. But the emotional boost that comes from rising to the challenge, and succeeding could lead to, oh, I dunno, a second draft?
As opposed to the previous entry,
, which acknowledges that most people find it difficult to set aside the time to plan and draft, and offers a guiding hand, Baty instead treats novel writing as a lark. In his view, there’s no pressure, since you’re writing primarily for yourself only. I do feel that some writers will misinterpret Baty’s view and asume that , whew, we’ve done all the hard work now let’s publish!
But for the mature aspring writer who wants a real kick-in-the-pants, balls-to-the-wall approach to finally, FINALLY, getting your first novel written, this makes a nice start.
Posted by admin on July 8, 2007
Recently in the NY Times, Mark Helprin asked the question, A Great Idea Lives Forever. Shouldn’t It’s Copyright? The argument he makes is simple: If I invest in and develop real property, I and my heirs own the rights to that property until such time as we sell them. Intellectual Property, on the other hand, reverts to public domain after a certain set period of time, currently 70 years after my death. Originally, this was done on purpose by our founding fathers to foster a free exchange of ideas. After all, Any idea still valuable years after it’s creator’s death must be widespread among the culture anyway.
Helprin argues that this is not fair. The founding father’s could not see the many varied media we have available to us, nor could they foresee the huge industries making their primary revenue from these intellectual pursuits. Therefore, Intellectual property rights should last as long as they are valuable, just like Real Property.
This Goes directly against prevailing wisdom, as espoused in my essay Death to Copyright. That the digital age has effectively killed the idea of copyright as it is now possible to freely disseminate intellectual property. Indeed, It can be argued that books, movies, music and other intellectual properties can become more valuable to their creators if copyright restrictions are relaxed. Using the open source model, artistic works find an audience when freely distributed and can become the building blocks of later, more lucrative endeavors ( see Cory Doctorow or Charles Stross, both of which have published noels under Creative Commons concurrently with their publication.)
Gatekeepers, the editors and publishers, are stuck between these two opposing forces. On the one hand, they are expected to make the investment in quality works and then to provide them in a wide range of formats at cheaper and cheaper costs.
The Opening Salvo in this war was the NY Times Co. vs Tasini case. In this case the Freelance authors won the battle, but lost the war as contracts were amended to allow publishers electronic rights. It should then come as no surprise that publishers, unable to foretell the future beyond a few quarters, now either ask for “All rights” or vaguely define Electronic rights to cover any possible future technology. And of course artists negotiate to retain these rights, often taking less of an advance up front.
So it boils down to this: An author can retain future rights on his work, taking the risk that these rights will not be worth anything, or he/she can sell these rights, taking the risk that they WILL be worth something in the future.
The Publisher wants to buy these rights, because he/she is already stuck taking the risk when buying the property in the first place.
In both cases, the parties want to hold on to the rights for as long as possible, regardless of any inherent value in them right now. The Artist might, or he might not use his rights to freely distribute his work. He might let other artists play with his creations, and might sell off different rights as the technology becomes available.
He might even hold on the them long after his death. After all, It worked for Walt Disney.
Posted by admin on
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Why: The blog itself is pretty standard stuff, but did I mention the daily newsletter?
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