Category Archives: Writing

How to steal like an artist

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My friend Dave asked for my thoughts on How To Steal Like an Artist, so I may as well share them with the rest of the world too. He’s talking about creativity generally; I take a specifically writer’s views.

  1. Yup.
  2. Indeed – this is part of your becoming. Having an idea helps, however, to give drive and focus to your creativity. Knowing who you are feeds into your creativity and vice versa.
  3. Depends. Sometimes there’s a contractual obligation. However, let’s assume this is about starting out as a writer, so it’s probably true. However, having written what you like, go back and check it isn’t just fan fiction. Sometimes you have to drown your kittens.
  4. YMMV. This works for him; I know for a fact it wouldn’t for me.
  5. Yes, even when you feel they’re crowding into what you really want to do, i.e. be creative.
  6. Get a good publisher with a publicity department. You should be free to spend your energy on creating.
  7. Well, yes. Not sure why this makes the top 10 – it’s a bit like saying we live on a world with gravity.
  8. Oh yes. Oh yes! Don’t be afraid of making mistakes, because if they’re typical newbie ones then people will people will move on. But if you enter the realms of total epic jerkness, people will remember. Oh yes. Seehttp://booksandpals.blogspot.com/2011/03/greek-seaman-jacqueline-howett.html
  9. Also true. This is why I get so irritated with people banging on about not wanting to have a boring 9-5 job when in fact they’ve never tried it.The boring 9-5 job gives you stability and subsidises the important stuff you do with the rest of your time. All the other things he mentions are true too.
  10. Also true. Make your audience do some imagining rather than spell it out for them – it will be better than anything you write. Cf. the entire career of Anne McCaffrey after the mid-80s.

His Majesty’s Starship, Jeapes Japes, and absolutely no DRM

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Now I’ve signed the contracts (as of today) I’m delighted to announce the republication of His Majesty’s Starship and the first-time publication of Jeapes Japes, my short story collection, both by the wonderful Cheryl Morgan’s Wizard’s Tower Press and both as ebooks. Check out the online book store shortly, and behold Andy Bigwood’s excellent cover.

 
I remember in one of my first serious writing efforts, c. 1984, imagining people reading something off a book-sized handheld gadget – and I was imagining the image being something more sophisticated than a cathode ray tube which was pretty well all that was available back then. Go me! What I didn’t foresee – though anyone who actually knew a thing about computer files could have worked it out within minutes – was the whole DRM thing.
One of the great things about Cheryl’s contract is that it specifies the books have noDRM protection. Now, you can see why publishers want to protect their books. In principle, with a paper book, anyone could take a photocopy and pass it on to friends; in practice, they probably won’t. With ebooks – indeed with any kind of software – they very easily can and do, and the publishers lose a sale. The publishers lose many sales. So, publishers want to make sure that doesn’t happen and they slap protection on – which effectively criminalises all the innocent readers, i.e. the majority. People don’t like that. Would you buy a paper book that you could only read in your own house, or your own house and that of a designated friend, just in case you photocopied it? Of course not.
But what about the lost revenue, you ask? Well, yes, that is a tough one and it’s a strong argument – but it will never, with existing technology, get over the point that people simply don’t like being treated as potential criminals just because of the minority (raking in huge sums) who actually are. Even Apple, which is pretty good at using its weight to get its own way regardless of everyone else’s feelings, was forced to drop DRM on iTunes. The successful publishers will be those who acknowledge there will be leakage of revenue, and work with it.
I’m hugely grateful to Cheryl for her principled stand on the matter, and for giving the books this chance.
Going back to the books, I did this cover myself (photo by Derek Walker) and take full responsibility for any sub-optimal awesomeness.

Day 11: a picture of something you hate

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AAAGGGHH!

I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate people using the fact that I’m a writer to start conversations. I know, I know, they’re just trying to make small talk, they’re not really interested in the answer, it’s all part of the glorious round of social interaction … but fer crying out loud, if you want small talk, talk about the weather.

I will gladly talk about my writing to an audience likely to understand the subtexts. Someone in the know will probably ask “what are you writing on” or “what is your current project”, which is very different. That has scope for a meaningful answer.

But this … this, quite innocently (I understand that, which is why I don’t thump them) suggests something that means so much to me is but a dilettante hobby. The questions are so clueless, so utterly without understanding of the basic facts; our starting points are so far apart there can be no hope for reconciliation within the context of small talk.

“Are you still writing?” Why, yes. Are you still breathing? The answer is ALWAYS. Why can’t you get that into your head?

“How’s the writing?” Fine, thanks. How’s the marriage?

“Have you written any more books?” This is the one that so gets me. Would you ask an architect if he’s built any more houses? A mother if she’s had any more babies … since you saw her last week? In the popular imagination, books just slide out like wet concrete off a trowel, at about the same rate as Ernie Wise churned out plays. There is no conception that if you asked this question last week and ask it again today then chances are good that nothing will have changed. It takes time to write a book.

Rant over. For now.