Thu 11 Oct 2007
I just did my very first podcast, and what a blast! Gail Z. Martin and I discussed the motivations, archetypes and use and abuse of necromancers in our books. In Gail’s book, The Summoner, her Necromancer is the “Good Guy”, whereas, in Deathmask, Azrael is the ultimate villain. Interestingly, we kind of deconstructed our works, and found that we both had similar ideas. If you’re interested, give it a listen.
The strangest thing about doing the podcast was listening to my own distorted voice (we did it on the phone), and wondering: do I really sound like that?
That and I discovered that my mouth sometimes works faster than my brain… well there’s a surprise!
Cheers!
November 5th, 2007 at 9:31 pm
Chris, loved the podcast. I admit, I had no idea what a necromancer was, but I’ve been enlightened. And . . . you sound like you. Don’t worry about it! You came across as a thoughtful, interesting guy.
Saw something that made me think of you the other day. USA Today had a profile of Ken Follett, in which he talked about a conversation with a friend who’s a novelist and playwright. “We were talking about what the readers like,” Follett said. “He said, ‘I never think about the readers.’ I told him, ‘That’s why you are a great writer, and that’s why I am a rich writer.’”
Sigh. I’ll never be a rich writer . . . Speaking of which, I had a little essay published in Good Old Boat this month. The editor of Messing About in Boats called them (Good Old Boat) and asked if they could republish it. Since they didn’t own the rights to it, they asked me. I asked what he wanted to pay to republish it, and the answer was zero. My answer was no, and I think all concerned were a bit pissed off, but I think it devalues the work of all writers to give your writing away. I’d like to know your thoughts about that, but my feeling is even a token payment is ok, but I need to get paid. Writing’s a craft like any other — it has value and our paychecks should recognize that.
November 6th, 2007 at 7:10 pm
From your point of view, I agree. You are a journalist, you should get paid for what you write. As a novelist, and a writer of short fiction, I think I should get paid for what I write, to a certain extent.
I will quote an acquaintance of mine, Cory Doctorow, in saying “Writers do not suffer from piracy as much as they suffer from anonymity.” This from the guy who releases all of his novels for free in PDF format under “Creative Commons” license as they are published in print. And he sells more books by doing so.
Don’t get me wrong, Kitty, I think you gave the right answer to the guy who wanted to publish your work at no cost. This is something already written, published, and the rights belong to you. If they want to make a buck off of it, you deserve to be paid. Cory puts his own stuff out there in cyberspace to drum up interest, and it works, but that’s him doing it, making a buck off of it, not someone else.
Well, I hope that was clear…
Cheers!
November 6th, 2007 at 8:31 pm
Interesting, and completely different, point of view, and one that comes from a creative heart and outlook. I think in Cory’s case he’s getting “paid” in feedback, companionship and many other intangibles based on the relationship he has with his readers. Not to mention getting paid, as in real money, by people who actually buy his books. Giving his work away is partially a sales technique. It all works out, and he’s compensated in the ways he wants to be compensated. When I write an article, I see it more as craft than art. It’s not like the artistic blood, sweat and tears that go into writing a novel. I crank it out, I put in time and research to do it, and I don’t do it for the fun of it, although I do enjoy it. I do it mostly to get paid. On Media Bistro, a site for writers, there are frequent discussions about writers who work for next to nothing making it really had for writers who write as a fulltime job. Editors get used to paying people 50 cents a word instead of maybe $1 or $2, and the rates and quality all trend downward. I don’t know what the answer is, but I do know that somebody who’s running a magazine is running a business and the cost of the raw materials includes the cost of articles he publishes. If it were a nonprofit, I might consider donating the piece, but it’s not. Great talking with you about this intersting topic.