Rob Osterman's Blog, page 16
March 12, 2012
But you don't read!
As I brainstorm ideas with Mrs. Osterman, she will often get a very amused grin on her face and shake her head. This is a cue to me to ask, of course, "What? What's so funny?" She will shake her head more and make a passing effort to refuse to answer me. After some prodding she eventually relents and says "But you don't read."
Thus the question, how can I fashion myself as any kind of writer if I do not read? Books that is. I read a great deal of news, and political commentary on various websites, and blogs. I often contribute to them as well, and not just as a writer, but more than often as a teacher. It's quite frustrating how often people with no experience in education are happy to opine for a few thousand words on how to fix education if someone would just put them in charge.
But as to literature, no, I'm not much of a reader. I don't really feel I have the time for it. On the one hand any time I spend with a book in hand is time my fingers are not pounding away at a keyboard and advancing one project or another. But that's really only 1/4th of the answer.
I tend to think of writing as having two major components: Mechanics and Material. Style and Substance. The Meat and the Bones.
When you read you are exposed to the story the author is telling and to the manner in which he is telling it. What does he have to say? And how does she put those words to page in a way that you understand the story?
I do enjoy a good story and I do enjoy seeing how others organize their tales. But for me I tend to find the consumption of any literature to be about the discovery of the tale more than it is about parsing turns of phrase. So for me I confess that I consume my "books" through non-book means.
For one I play a great deal of video games, and I tend to gravitate to games with some story. RPGs and MMO's in particular draw me in because quite often the framework of a story is there and I am allowed, as a player, to flesh that story out with my own choices as well as provide my characters background, side notes, and personal quirks. I am playing a character, currently, in Star Wars: Old Republic. She is an Imperial Agent,and already has had to infiltrate a Hutt palace, befriend and then betray one of his lieutenants, progress to another planet, and there has a new slew of missions.
But as I've played I've developed more of her story. I've thought about why she became an agent. What was her life like before the uniform? What experiences has she had that allow her to callously follow orders and execute a potential threat rather than allow them to escape with the promise of never returning? Who is she, really?
And I find that this is just as good an exercise at getting me to think about my writing as reading a novel would be. Other games that I've invested in recently include Dragon Age: Origins. I highly recommend it as a rich fantasy world with its own quirks and plays on the common tropes of Elves and Dwarves.
So, no, I'm not a reader, really. But I do take in stories in my own way. Perhaps in time non-novel-storytelling will get its due and the fact that most "reading" occurs in a video game won't seem so ... well.. novel.
Thus the question, how can I fashion myself as any kind of writer if I do not read? Books that is. I read a great deal of news, and political commentary on various websites, and blogs. I often contribute to them as well, and not just as a writer, but more than often as a teacher. It's quite frustrating how often people with no experience in education are happy to opine for a few thousand words on how to fix education if someone would just put them in charge.
But as to literature, no, I'm not much of a reader. I don't really feel I have the time for it. On the one hand any time I spend with a book in hand is time my fingers are not pounding away at a keyboard and advancing one project or another. But that's really only 1/4th of the answer.
I tend to think of writing as having two major components: Mechanics and Material. Style and Substance. The Meat and the Bones.
When you read you are exposed to the story the author is telling and to the manner in which he is telling it. What does he have to say? And how does she put those words to page in a way that you understand the story?
I do enjoy a good story and I do enjoy seeing how others organize their tales. But for me I tend to find the consumption of any literature to be about the discovery of the tale more than it is about parsing turns of phrase. So for me I confess that I consume my "books" through non-book means.
For one I play a great deal of video games, and I tend to gravitate to games with some story. RPGs and MMO's in particular draw me in because quite often the framework of a story is there and I am allowed, as a player, to flesh that story out with my own choices as well as provide my characters background, side notes, and personal quirks. I am playing a character, currently, in Star Wars: Old Republic. She is an Imperial Agent,and already has had to infiltrate a Hutt palace, befriend and then betray one of his lieutenants, progress to another planet, and there has a new slew of missions.
But as I've played I've developed more of her story. I've thought about why she became an agent. What was her life like before the uniform? What experiences has she had that allow her to callously follow orders and execute a potential threat rather than allow them to escape with the promise of never returning? Who is she, really?
And I find that this is just as good an exercise at getting me to think about my writing as reading a novel would be. Other games that I've invested in recently include Dragon Age: Origins. I highly recommend it as a rich fantasy world with its own quirks and plays on the common tropes of Elves and Dwarves.
So, no, I'm not a reader, really. But I do take in stories in my own way. Perhaps in time non-novel-storytelling will get its due and the fact that most "reading" occurs in a video game won't seem so ... well.. novel.
March 8, 2012
Wicked: Children's Edition
As a Christmas present a friend bought his wife tickets to go see Wicked at a major theater Downtown. Being friends he invited us to join them and my wife and I did. The seats were very good on the main floor about 15 rows back. They also were, well, I won't quote you a price, dear readers, but let's leave it at "somewhere in the ball park of a new xBox game console, and games" for one seat.
Which you know, was worth it. The show was amazing. The costumes, the music, the story, the effects, everything. The last production of Wicked that we got to see I was rather unimpressed with the illusion of defying gravity. However in this one, they one upped it and had the Munchkins come running out under as she sang (and hit those high notes).
Everything was great. Until... (and you, dear reader, had to know there was an "until..." coming)
Across the isle from me was a 4-year old who by the middle of second act was bored and annoyed at being bored. Most of the first half of Act 2 was spent moving back and forth from her seat to her father's lap. But at the half way mark she was now actively protesting being there. Loudly. To her parents' credit they did try to convince her to lower her voice. And they were moderately successful in short bursts. I imagine that with the music and the singing that her protestations were probably inaudible more than 5 rows away.
I, however, was not 5 rows away.
And there I sat, trying to politely ignore the increasingly in-ignorable. And I was also left with the question: Who thinks that it is worth that kind of money to take a 4-year old to see a professional stage production?
I love X, our 4 year old, dearly. I love taking him to movies, especially the Sunday Family Movie Matinee that our local theater runs. ($1 tickets for kids to see a movie that's about a year old; popcorn is, of course, not discounted). But I'm sorry, at that age I don't think he can really appreciate a professional company production. Or perhaps he can but will he remember it as vividly and as long?
And what of the other patrons who also came to enjoy a quality show? Is the desire for a young child to see a show something that should trump the desire for adults to enjoy that show in peace?
Perhaps the solution is to have designated "kid friendly" shows so that those who want to spend an XBox on tickets for their 4 year olds can do just that, in the company of similarly minded folks....
Which you know, was worth it. The show was amazing. The costumes, the music, the story, the effects, everything. The last production of Wicked that we got to see I was rather unimpressed with the illusion of defying gravity. However in this one, they one upped it and had the Munchkins come running out under as she sang (and hit those high notes).
Everything was great. Until... (and you, dear reader, had to know there was an "until..." coming)
Across the isle from me was a 4-year old who by the middle of second act was bored and annoyed at being bored. Most of the first half of Act 2 was spent moving back and forth from her seat to her father's lap. But at the half way mark she was now actively protesting being there. Loudly. To her parents' credit they did try to convince her to lower her voice. And they were moderately successful in short bursts. I imagine that with the music and the singing that her protestations were probably inaudible more than 5 rows away.
I, however, was not 5 rows away.
And there I sat, trying to politely ignore the increasingly in-ignorable. And I was also left with the question: Who thinks that it is worth that kind of money to take a 4-year old to see a professional stage production?
I love X, our 4 year old, dearly. I love taking him to movies, especially the Sunday Family Movie Matinee that our local theater runs. ($1 tickets for kids to see a movie that's about a year old; popcorn is, of course, not discounted). But I'm sorry, at that age I don't think he can really appreciate a professional company production. Or perhaps he can but will he remember it as vividly and as long?
And what of the other patrons who also came to enjoy a quality show? Is the desire for a young child to see a show something that should trump the desire for adults to enjoy that show in peace?
Perhaps the solution is to have designated "kid friendly" shows so that those who want to spend an XBox on tickets for their 4 year olds can do just that, in the company of similarly minded folks....
March 5, 2012
Chapter 1: Take 1
So Sunday I finally got some time to sit and write. Mrs. Osterman was off to the Dog Show with some friends from her old job, Xander was up north with his grand parents, Kaylee was ~finally~ asleep, and my lesson plans for the next few weeks were more or less ready to go. It was time to start pounding away on the next great epic space adventure, a coming-of-age story following a young Ensign in Her Majesty's Royal Space Navy rise to Captain of an 8th rate ship of the line. Or some rate ship of the line. Maybe. I haven't quite decided how big that ship is yet, relatively speaking.
But I got to pound on the keyboard, introduce you, dear reader, to Ensign Ippa Kiatta, her fren-emy Lt. Cordean Morthi, work on a sketch of the Hartishian race (a bit like elves with overly large almond eyes, and extremely long pointed ears) and do a proof of concept with hyper-linking key terms to the Codex of information in the back of the book.
You see, one of my grand designs for this project is to have the novel itself, and then have an additional extended encyclopedia of the world available with the eBook edition which will be hyper linked to relevant sections. That way if you want to know more about the gunnery controls, or about a character, there is addtional information just a click away. And then with your back button you can get back to the story itself. Or depending on your eReader, back to where you left your mark.
Here's what I found as my day of writing went on:
First, that it will indeed work to link the various references into the text. The downside is that I fear that most of my first chapters will be heavily steeped in hyper links where as later in the book, I won't nearly as often. As Mrs. Osterman read through the first chapter for me, there were quite a few questions about what I had thought were fairly common Sci Fi conventions. Now these she dismissed as "oh don't worry I don't read much Sci Fi so that's probably fine". On the contrary, I want this book to be approachable even to someone new to the genre so my intent is to include an explanation for anything and everything that may need it.
There is of course the logical question of "why not just put it in the prose?" Have one character just explain it to another, right? That will certainly work some of the time and as the paperback edition will not have this codex, I will need to be sure that the most important concepts are fully explained in the text itself. For example, even in the first chapter I describe what a Hartishian looks like. I want any reader to be able to visualize one without having to turn to the glossary in the back. But what they will find there is a complete biological work up of the race.
Secondly I learned that when you begin a novel in the heat of the moment, it is incredibly difficult to establish action, establish character, describe the scene, and provide action all with balance. This first draft was critiqued as being "choppy" and I confess I completely agree. But rather than being defeated I am invigorated. Sure the entire first chapter must be started anew to have a prayer of surviving to the final draft.
I did not fail to write a solid first chapter. I have succeeded in finding a way not to write it.
But I got to pound on the keyboard, introduce you, dear reader, to Ensign Ippa Kiatta, her fren-emy Lt. Cordean Morthi, work on a sketch of the Hartishian race (a bit like elves with overly large almond eyes, and extremely long pointed ears) and do a proof of concept with hyper-linking key terms to the Codex of information in the back of the book.
You see, one of my grand designs for this project is to have the novel itself, and then have an additional extended encyclopedia of the world available with the eBook edition which will be hyper linked to relevant sections. That way if you want to know more about the gunnery controls, or about a character, there is addtional information just a click away. And then with your back button you can get back to the story itself. Or depending on your eReader, back to where you left your mark.
Here's what I found as my day of writing went on:
First, that it will indeed work to link the various references into the text. The downside is that I fear that most of my first chapters will be heavily steeped in hyper links where as later in the book, I won't nearly as often. As Mrs. Osterman read through the first chapter for me, there were quite a few questions about what I had thought were fairly common Sci Fi conventions. Now these she dismissed as "oh don't worry I don't read much Sci Fi so that's probably fine". On the contrary, I want this book to be approachable even to someone new to the genre so my intent is to include an explanation for anything and everything that may need it.
There is of course the logical question of "why not just put it in the prose?" Have one character just explain it to another, right? That will certainly work some of the time and as the paperback edition will not have this codex, I will need to be sure that the most important concepts are fully explained in the text itself. For example, even in the first chapter I describe what a Hartishian looks like. I want any reader to be able to visualize one without having to turn to the glossary in the back. But what they will find there is a complete biological work up of the race.
Secondly I learned that when you begin a novel in the heat of the moment, it is incredibly difficult to establish action, establish character, describe the scene, and provide action all with balance. This first draft was critiqued as being "choppy" and I confess I completely agree. But rather than being defeated I am invigorated. Sure the entire first chapter must be started anew to have a prayer of surviving to the final draft.
I did not fail to write a solid first chapter. I have succeeded in finding a way not to write it.
March 1, 2012
How hard is it to drive a star ship?
At the heart of it my next writing project is going to be a Trek inspired novel. Plain and simple, I fully intend to introduce to people an epic space fiction closer to Star Trek than Star Wars. However, I also want to personalize as much of the story as I can, as well as the world in which it takes place. I could, quite easily, steal the command structure that has become part of the common geek lexicon of Starfleet. Operations, Security, Science, and Command divisions, each with their own department heads and so on. And of course when you get to the top of the command chain, regardless of why or how you got in, you are considered a Command officer and put on the red shirt.
So I turned to the old British navy for inspiration. You have a ship's commander who was a captain if it was a ship of the line, or a commander for a smaller vessel. He commanded a group of lieutenants, all of whom were training to become captains. Then there were the various ship's posts such as Master, Boatswain, Gunner, Cook. They then had men reporting to them. and so on and so down the chain of command.
But what struck me as I started to work on organizational trees was simply how streamlined Starfleet is in comparison. Everyone has room to advance, for one, from Ensign right up to Commander and never have to actually take command of a ship. Likewise, there are only a handful of clear departments and heads and "Bridge Officers" to worry about. Working on my new command structure, I found that I had was creating departments faster than I could fill the posts. Some questions I found myself pondering:
Is shield emitter control the role of the ship's Carpenter/ Engineering or the role of the ship's Gunner?Where does the Cook fall? Should he report to the first officer or to the ship's Master? Is Cook a "Bridge Officer" position?What about Sciences? Do my ships in this world have Science Officers? Or do they have civilian scientists who sign on as consultants and advisers? Is the term "Ship's Chemist" too antiquated to be the general term?How do I take my main character and throw her, in a few moments, from a junior officer into the role of commanding officer as my plot requires?Follow up: How does my main character go from her unique background to being positioned for that catapult in carreer?
At the moment I have become heavily challenged by the fact that I know what I want my plot to do and I want to leave myself room in my world design to actually see that plot through. I want, terribly, to avoid the situation where I write myself into a corner and then sit staring at the monitor saying to myself, "Wait, I didn't write the world to let that happen...."
And finally I need to be certain that my audience, that is you, dear readers, find a richness in the depth without the need to make your own organizational diagrams to keep track of which Ensign reports to which Lieutenant and who is filling multiple roles within that setup.
Also I need to settle on Lieutenant vs Leftennant...
So I turned to the old British navy for inspiration. You have a ship's commander who was a captain if it was a ship of the line, or a commander for a smaller vessel. He commanded a group of lieutenants, all of whom were training to become captains. Then there were the various ship's posts such as Master, Boatswain, Gunner, Cook. They then had men reporting to them. and so on and so down the chain of command.
But what struck me as I started to work on organizational trees was simply how streamlined Starfleet is in comparison. Everyone has room to advance, for one, from Ensign right up to Commander and never have to actually take command of a ship. Likewise, there are only a handful of clear departments and heads and "Bridge Officers" to worry about. Working on my new command structure, I found that I had was creating departments faster than I could fill the posts. Some questions I found myself pondering:
Is shield emitter control the role of the ship's Carpenter/ Engineering or the role of the ship's Gunner?Where does the Cook fall? Should he report to the first officer or to the ship's Master? Is Cook a "Bridge Officer" position?What about Sciences? Do my ships in this world have Science Officers? Or do they have civilian scientists who sign on as consultants and advisers? Is the term "Ship's Chemist" too antiquated to be the general term?How do I take my main character and throw her, in a few moments, from a junior officer into the role of commanding officer as my plot requires?Follow up: How does my main character go from her unique background to being positioned for that catapult in carreer?
At the moment I have become heavily challenged by the fact that I know what I want my plot to do and I want to leave myself room in my world design to actually see that plot through. I want, terribly, to avoid the situation where I write myself into a corner and then sit staring at the monitor saying to myself, "Wait, I didn't write the world to let that happen...."
And finally I need to be certain that my audience, that is you, dear readers, find a richness in the depth without the need to make your own organizational diagrams to keep track of which Ensign reports to which Lieutenant and who is filling multiple roles within that setup.
Also I need to settle on Lieutenant vs Leftennant...
February 27, 2012
These are terms that do not exist....
Lately I've been playing a lot of Star Wars: The Old Republic. It's scratching a lot of itches for me. It's a solid WoW-Clone MMO with all the features you'd expect and a solid, reliable, and recognizable interface. The story is top notch and if you play a Sith you get to have a rocking British Accent. Unless you're undercover in which case you're supposed to sound like you're from the American Midwest. Personally, I'd like to find that planet where you sound like you're from Boston*.
At any rate, I was looking up stuff on line related to a recent twist with my newbie operative when I came across a fascinating quote:
Bioware, of course, has since apologized. Many times over. After all this was back in 2009 and by
Internet standards on the same page practically pre-historic. It probably still apologizes when it comes up. The truth is that in our reality those terms do exist and the people who identify as gay, lesbian, transgender, do exist. Such a dismissal was callous and a public relations fuster cluck.
But it got me thinking about the greater concept there. Strip away the situation of a frustrated forum moderator shutting down conversation and look at the basic concept:
We don't look at married friends (who happen to be opposite genders) and say "Wow, they've got a great straight marriage". No. We simply say "They've got a great marriage." In an ideal world the term "gay" never comes into play since the use of the word denotes "other". You have a "boyfriend" and you have a "gay boyfriend". You have a "lover" and you have a "lesbian lover".
As I'm oft to note, dear reader, I am in the process of building a world, one nation-state at a time. I have the freedom to make my Royal Commonwealth of Worlds how ever I like, to be whatever level of Utopia I wish it to be. I can make it homophobic, homo-accepting or simply gender-not-interested.
I did this to a degree in FantastiCon. Two of my three main characters hint at same sex relationships but never are the words "gay" or "lesbian" used. I presented, I think, an idealize view of sexuality even though the book is set in "the real world". In fact upon first read-through, my mother in law looked at me and asked "Is that she supposed to be gay?" I shrugged it off and said "I guess. I simply wrote her as having a romantic option and didn't worry about gender typing."
So upon reflection, I believe that in my Commonwealth, I can unapologetically say that the terms Gay and Lesbian won't exist either. Perhaps they will for the New Terran Confederacy, or the Empire of the Red Nova. Surely among some of the Union of Independent Worlds there will be some that are radically homophobic and some that are strictly homosexual. Why not?
But no, I think that while I am trying to avoid the total Utopia that some series go for, I will have this: One where we judge not on the gender of a partner but on the quality of the relationship.
* As most Star Wars fans will know, John Ratzenberger plays the role of Major Bren Derlin who has the singular line telling all of the assembled crew on Hoth to get to their ships. It's hard not to hear that line as having a touch of Bostonian drawl, more so when you know the actor who provides it.
At any rate, I was looking up stuff on line related to a recent twist with my newbie operative when I came across a fascinating quote:
After a user expressed concern that Bioware had "disallowed" the use of the terms "gay" and "lesbian" on the boards in a thread titled "GLBT discrimination in forums?" a Bioware forum moderator dropped in and posted this:
As I have stated before, these are terms that do not exist in Star Wars.
Thread closed.
Bioware, of course, has since apologized. Many times over. After all this was back in 2009 and by
Internet standards on the same page practically pre-historic. It probably still apologizes when it comes up. The truth is that in our reality those terms do exist and the people who identify as gay, lesbian, transgender, do exist. Such a dismissal was callous and a public relations fuster cluck.
But it got me thinking about the greater concept there. Strip away the situation of a frustrated forum moderator shutting down conversation and look at the basic concept:
The terms "Gay" and "Lesbian" do not exist.What's important to note is that it doesn't say that same sex relationships do not exist, that gay people do not exist. Only that the terms do not. That implies a world where loving someone of the same gender is not seen as something that requires a label to describe it other than "love".
We don't look at married friends (who happen to be opposite genders) and say "Wow, they've got a great straight marriage". No. We simply say "They've got a great marriage." In an ideal world the term "gay" never comes into play since the use of the word denotes "other". You have a "boyfriend" and you have a "gay boyfriend". You have a "lover" and you have a "lesbian lover".
As I'm oft to note, dear reader, I am in the process of building a world, one nation-state at a time. I have the freedom to make my Royal Commonwealth of Worlds how ever I like, to be whatever level of Utopia I wish it to be. I can make it homophobic, homo-accepting or simply gender-not-interested.
I did this to a degree in FantastiCon. Two of my three main characters hint at same sex relationships but never are the words "gay" or "lesbian" used. I presented, I think, an idealize view of sexuality even though the book is set in "the real world". In fact upon first read-through, my mother in law looked at me and asked "Is that she supposed to be gay?" I shrugged it off and said "I guess. I simply wrote her as having a romantic option and didn't worry about gender typing."
So upon reflection, I believe that in my Commonwealth, I can unapologetically say that the terms Gay and Lesbian won't exist either. Perhaps they will for the New Terran Confederacy, or the Empire of the Red Nova. Surely among some of the Union of Independent Worlds there will be some that are radically homophobic and some that are strictly homosexual. Why not?
But no, I think that while I am trying to avoid the total Utopia that some series go for, I will have this: One where we judge not on the gender of a partner but on the quality of the relationship.
* As most Star Wars fans will know, John Ratzenberger plays the role of Major Bren Derlin who has the singular line telling all of the assembled crew on Hoth to get to their ships. It's hard not to hear that line as having a touch of Bostonian drawl, more so when you know the actor who provides it.
February 23, 2012
On Pirates and DRM
When I pushed the eBook edition of FantastiCon live I was faced with a very difficult choice: To DRM or Not to DRM. Was it nobler to face the slings and arrows of those who so hate having file use restricted or to accept such and deny them by placing a wall about their purchase? And this was made even more complicated given that my target audience is fairly tech savy and the kind of folk who probably would prefer to have a book they can move around from platform to platform freely. (Note to self: See if Amazon will let me list the book twice, once with DRM and once without)
Set that thought aside and let me point to something else, the actual inspiration for this post:
A friend linked to an Oatmeal comic related to the challenges of getting to watch Game of Thrones on the computer. It's meant to be a lighthearted look at how many road blocks can exist to someone getting the content they want. Unfortunately I did not see the main character as someone I should feel sorry for because he was denied his television show.
The young man in the comic was a whiney prat.
To summarize to those who do not want to click through, a guy has just finished reading Game of Thrones and now wants to watch the HBO series that came out last year. He checks Netflix only to find it is not available. The show is listed on iTunes but the actual episodes are not available for two more weeks. In the mean time they offer free downloads of behind the scenes featurettes. He checks Amazon but it does not come up in the search there. (It does now, with a ship date of March 6) Finally he finds that he can watch it on the HBO website, if he would normally get HBO as a network through his cable provider. He does not get cable so he's left Abosultely No Choice! He just has to download it illegally.
And this frustrates me on so many levels. Simply if he wanted to watch the show he has multiple ways he can do so. He can become a cable subscriber. He gives money for a service, specifically the freedom to watch some programs when they are first released. With the addition of a DVR, he can watch them whenever he likes once they've aired. Alternatively he can wait until they become available on iTunes and purchase them there. Or he order them on Amazon, provided he can wait a few weeks for them to become available. I even wager that Netflix DVD service will have them intially available about the same time.
Of course all of these options require that he either pay for a service or he wait for them to become available to him based on what he's willing to pay for. This, to him and many others, is simply unacceptable. He wants, nay he deserves to be able to watch that program right now.
In other discussions I've seen it proposed that a movie be available across all platforms at once. When it hits theaters, it also hits DVDs, it hits internet streaming and it hits On Demand programming. Of course you pay more for the DVD on release date, with this program, than you would waiting the customary 9-18 months for the DVD release. Why? Because you're getting a form of premium. You get to see the movie right away without going to the theater. Makes sense doesn't it? That if you want to be among the first to get something that you pay for it?
But how is that different than what's happened with GoT and HBO? I subscribe to HBO through my cable provider because, yes, we get cable. We keep getting cable because it's a service we use; there are programs that are available in a timely fashion through cable that we like to watch and so we pay for it.
Artists, regardless of medium, deserve to get paid for their work.
Artists, regardless of medium, should not be forced to give their work away for free.
I've often seen the various trade organizations and legal teams make the case of the shoplifted DVD as a case against downloads. We all know it's wrong to try to walk out of a store with a DVD under our coat, why do we think illegally downloading a movie is any different? And to be honest coming from someone who gets to fly to Washington on a private jet to talk about how he hates being stolen from makes my skin crawl.
And quite often the defense of torrents and illegal downloads is that "I can't get it any other way". It's a show on a network that local cable won't carry. It's a movie that is banned in my country because of a repressive regime. It's a movie that simply isn't in production on DVD anymore.
But this case with the Oatmeal is even less sympathetic. It's a show that did air in his country of origin (assuming the comic is American). It's a show that will be available in a few weeks on multiple platforms from BR DVD through iTunes streaming. It's a show that is available right now if he signs up for a service that will provide it, though such a service is expensive comparatively speaking.
So we're supposed to be sympathetic that he's breaking the law because none of those solutions are acceptable.
It's the kid that was offered a chance to earn money shoveling driveways to buy his favorite movie on DVD. But that's too much work. So he was offered a chance to save his allowance for a month to buy the movie. But that's going to take too long. He was offered to get the movie free as a birthday present, but he didn't want it then. So, instead, he's just going to put it in his pocket right now and walk out with it.
I won't even try to say that it's a costly crime. I won't even say that any one involved with Game of Thrones knows or cares if a dozen, if a hundred, heck if a thousand DVD's are stolen. The show is going to sell far more copies than that and I do believe that the vast majority of those involved were fairly compensated for their troubles.
But getting back to me, (and it is all about me, isn't it, dear reader?) I started with my thoughts on why I DRM'd my humble little novel, one that will be lucky to sell 100 copies. For me every time someone forwards the unprotected file to a friend, it would be one less royalty. The eBook is priced at $3.99, less then a Starbuck's coffee. However, the responses I've seen to that comic only make me even more sure I did the right thing putting DRM on it. The attitude seems to be ever-growing: I want what I want when I want it, and I deserve to have it, Right Now.
Which is an attitude I not only fail to understand but completely reject. Art is work. And those who produce it should decide how it is shared, no one else.
No one else.
Set that thought aside and let me point to something else, the actual inspiration for this post:
A friend linked to an Oatmeal comic related to the challenges of getting to watch Game of Thrones on the computer. It's meant to be a lighthearted look at how many road blocks can exist to someone getting the content they want. Unfortunately I did not see the main character as someone I should feel sorry for because he was denied his television show.
The young man in the comic was a whiney prat.
To summarize to those who do not want to click through, a guy has just finished reading Game of Thrones and now wants to watch the HBO series that came out last year. He checks Netflix only to find it is not available. The show is listed on iTunes but the actual episodes are not available for two more weeks. In the mean time they offer free downloads of behind the scenes featurettes. He checks Amazon but it does not come up in the search there. (It does now, with a ship date of March 6) Finally he finds that he can watch it on the HBO website, if he would normally get HBO as a network through his cable provider. He does not get cable so he's left Abosultely No Choice! He just has to download it illegally.
And this frustrates me on so many levels. Simply if he wanted to watch the show he has multiple ways he can do so. He can become a cable subscriber. He gives money for a service, specifically the freedom to watch some programs when they are first released. With the addition of a DVR, he can watch them whenever he likes once they've aired. Alternatively he can wait until they become available on iTunes and purchase them there. Or he order them on Amazon, provided he can wait a few weeks for them to become available. I even wager that Netflix DVD service will have them intially available about the same time.
Of course all of these options require that he either pay for a service or he wait for them to become available to him based on what he's willing to pay for. This, to him and many others, is simply unacceptable. He wants, nay he deserves to be able to watch that program right now.
In other discussions I've seen it proposed that a movie be available across all platforms at once. When it hits theaters, it also hits DVDs, it hits internet streaming and it hits On Demand programming. Of course you pay more for the DVD on release date, with this program, than you would waiting the customary 9-18 months for the DVD release. Why? Because you're getting a form of premium. You get to see the movie right away without going to the theater. Makes sense doesn't it? That if you want to be among the first to get something that you pay for it?
But how is that different than what's happened with GoT and HBO? I subscribe to HBO through my cable provider because, yes, we get cable. We keep getting cable because it's a service we use; there are programs that are available in a timely fashion through cable that we like to watch and so we pay for it.
Artists, regardless of medium, deserve to get paid for their work.
Artists, regardless of medium, should not be forced to give their work away for free.
I've often seen the various trade organizations and legal teams make the case of the shoplifted DVD as a case against downloads. We all know it's wrong to try to walk out of a store with a DVD under our coat, why do we think illegally downloading a movie is any different? And to be honest coming from someone who gets to fly to Washington on a private jet to talk about how he hates being stolen from makes my skin crawl.
And quite often the defense of torrents and illegal downloads is that "I can't get it any other way". It's a show on a network that local cable won't carry. It's a movie that is banned in my country because of a repressive regime. It's a movie that simply isn't in production on DVD anymore.
But this case with the Oatmeal is even less sympathetic. It's a show that did air in his country of origin (assuming the comic is American). It's a show that will be available in a few weeks on multiple platforms from BR DVD through iTunes streaming. It's a show that is available right now if he signs up for a service that will provide it, though such a service is expensive comparatively speaking.
So we're supposed to be sympathetic that he's breaking the law because none of those solutions are acceptable.
It's the kid that was offered a chance to earn money shoveling driveways to buy his favorite movie on DVD. But that's too much work. So he was offered a chance to save his allowance for a month to buy the movie. But that's going to take too long. He was offered to get the movie free as a birthday present, but he didn't want it then. So, instead, he's just going to put it in his pocket right now and walk out with it.
I won't even try to say that it's a costly crime. I won't even say that any one involved with Game of Thrones knows or cares if a dozen, if a hundred, heck if a thousand DVD's are stolen. The show is going to sell far more copies than that and I do believe that the vast majority of those involved were fairly compensated for their troubles.
But getting back to me, (and it is all about me, isn't it, dear reader?) I started with my thoughts on why I DRM'd my humble little novel, one that will be lucky to sell 100 copies. For me every time someone forwards the unprotected file to a friend, it would be one less royalty. The eBook is priced at $3.99, less then a Starbuck's coffee. However, the responses I've seen to that comic only make me even more sure I did the right thing putting DRM on it. The attitude seems to be ever-growing: I want what I want when I want it, and I deserve to have it, Right Now.
Which is an attitude I not only fail to understand but completely reject. Art is work. And those who produce it should decide how it is shared, no one else.
No one else.
February 20, 2012
With a wave of the hand... it works
One of the challenges you face when you world build outside of reality is the challenge of "how does that work"? Gene Roddenbery famously answered the question "How do the transporters work?" with the answer "Very well, thank you."
As I work on the next project I am trying to sort out how many alien races I want to have, how much of this universe is "Human", and of course, how they're able to transverse space quickly. Already I've started to consult with friends who are learned in "rocket science" as to how well my efforts to explain how FTL technology is going to work and how FTL Communication will be done.
Another aspect of this world is the development of a race entirely of female robots. This creates particular challenge in that I want to avoid the "What's it mean to be human?" characteristic that defined Data on Star Trek: TNG while at the same time not letting the race become regular women who just happen to be robotic. As someone with some training in programming, I am also trying desperately to avoid thinking about how hard some of the specific subroutines and behaviors would be to program.
My current point of consideration and consternation is the simple issue of "Pleasure". Computers don't have fun. Which begs the question "What is fun?" And with it the follow up question "Why do we do fun things?"
Take playing tennis. Winning, for humans, is a pleasurable experience. We like to win. So how do you program a robot to want to win because it is "fun"? For the robot-race, a given robot might have "Winning" as a personal point of pursuit. When given a block of time, and that robot begins to cycle through choices of pursuits, there would be a non-zero chance that she selects "Win a competition" and then seeks out an activity that will qualify to meet that goal.
The entire exercise is forcing a very strong reflection on the actual physiological triggers in the human body to "fun" activities and how to translate them down into computer code.
Or perhaps it's a matter of hand-waving a bit into the story the same answer many of us would given when asked "why is that fun?". That answer being, quite often: "I don't know; it just is."
As I work on the next project I am trying to sort out how many alien races I want to have, how much of this universe is "Human", and of course, how they're able to transverse space quickly. Already I've started to consult with friends who are learned in "rocket science" as to how well my efforts to explain how FTL technology is going to work and how FTL Communication will be done.
Another aspect of this world is the development of a race entirely of female robots. This creates particular challenge in that I want to avoid the "What's it mean to be human?" characteristic that defined Data on Star Trek: TNG while at the same time not letting the race become regular women who just happen to be robotic. As someone with some training in programming, I am also trying desperately to avoid thinking about how hard some of the specific subroutines and behaviors would be to program.
My current point of consideration and consternation is the simple issue of "Pleasure". Computers don't have fun. Which begs the question "What is fun?" And with it the follow up question "Why do we do fun things?"
Take playing tennis. Winning, for humans, is a pleasurable experience. We like to win. So how do you program a robot to want to win because it is "fun"? For the robot-race, a given robot might have "Winning" as a personal point of pursuit. When given a block of time, and that robot begins to cycle through choices of pursuits, there would be a non-zero chance that she selects "Win a competition" and then seeks out an activity that will qualify to meet that goal.
The entire exercise is forcing a very strong reflection on the actual physiological triggers in the human body to "fun" activities and how to translate them down into computer code.
Or perhaps it's a matter of hand-waving a bit into the story the same answer many of us would given when asked "why is that fun?". That answer being, quite often: "I don't know; it just is."
February 18, 2012
An Honorary Gentleman
With the ePublication of FantastiCon, I was invited to write a post about the process at a blog I follow: Mindless Diversions, a sub blog of The League of Ordinary Gentlemen.
The story of a novel
Today I joined the ranks thousands of writers and made my first full length novel available for purchase on Amazon.com. How did I go from a simple school teacher to a self-published writer? The story has some interesting twists and a few lessons for the novice, though I hardly consider myself an expert on writing or self publishing.
It started with National Novel Writing Month back in 2007. I set out to write a stalker drama playing on elements of online relationships and how little we know about the people we say we know via online channels. That year I failed to meet my goal of 50,000 words by the end of the month. In 2008 I tried again but with a twist: I set the entire story at a massive fantasy and science fiction convention. My wife and I are several year veterans of Atlanta's Dragon Con and have become friends with many who make their hobby doing the convention circuit. On Dec 1st, 2008 I had a manuscript in hand.You can read the rest here on the website...
February 17, 2012
And thus it begins...
So, the official first post of the blog.....
For a writer, or rather an aspiring writer, I find myself in the horrid position of not knowing what to say.
Actually let me begin like this:
Back when I first wrote FantastiCon, I used to say "I wrote a book". My wife, whom I love dearly, would politely correct me. I had a manuscript. I had the text of a book, but I could not say I had written a book until someone could go on Amazon.com and buy that book, or walk into a book store and ask them to order a copy of that book. For her, a true bibliophile, I was among millions of people who sat down, told a story and then let that story sit in some folder or some hard drive and never make it out to the general populous.
But, that's changed.
You can go on Amazon and see, yes, there's a book there for sale and it has, of all things, my name on it. Right there on the cover image. Rather impressive, I think. And thanks to some fledgling word of mouth campaigning, I can even claim to have made money on this book. Not a lot, but there is a non-zero number on the Amazon reports page under Royalties. I am a professional writer. Well a paid writer at any rate.
It's an odd turning point, really, to have hit a point where someone feels that there might be enough to your story that they're willing to trade money for a chance to read it.
And I'm onto my next project. There's still a great deal to work out with the world building and one advantage of this blog is that I can use it to flesh out ideas, post teasers, and even, on occasion, invite you, dear reader, to provide some feedback. Is it really believable to have a race of robot women? Is it beyond even the realm of science fiction to have ships that only can fire broad-sides? I hope the answers are, respectively, yes, and then no, as both are aspects of this next project.
As to other updates, I sent the files back to CreateSpace last night and hope to order the next proof copy of the book for delivery early next week. If it passes muster, then in roughly a week a print edition of FantastiCon will be available.
I can't wait....
For a writer, or rather an aspiring writer, I find myself in the horrid position of not knowing what to say.
Actually let me begin like this:
Back when I first wrote FantastiCon, I used to say "I wrote a book". My wife, whom I love dearly, would politely correct me. I had a manuscript. I had the text of a book, but I could not say I had written a book until someone could go on Amazon.com and buy that book, or walk into a book store and ask them to order a copy of that book. For her, a true bibliophile, I was among millions of people who sat down, told a story and then let that story sit in some folder or some hard drive and never make it out to the general populous.
But, that's changed.
You can go on Amazon and see, yes, there's a book there for sale and it has, of all things, my name on it. Right there on the cover image. Rather impressive, I think. And thanks to some fledgling word of mouth campaigning, I can even claim to have made money on this book. Not a lot, but there is a non-zero number on the Amazon reports page under Royalties. I am a professional writer. Well a paid writer at any rate.
It's an odd turning point, really, to have hit a point where someone feels that there might be enough to your story that they're willing to trade money for a chance to read it.
And I'm onto my next project. There's still a great deal to work out with the world building and one advantage of this blog is that I can use it to flesh out ideas, post teasers, and even, on occasion, invite you, dear reader, to provide some feedback. Is it really believable to have a race of robot women? Is it beyond even the realm of science fiction to have ships that only can fire broad-sides? I hope the answers are, respectively, yes, and then no, as both are aspects of this next project.
As to other updates, I sent the files back to CreateSpace last night and hope to order the next proof copy of the book for delivery early next week. If it passes muster, then in roughly a week a print edition of FantastiCon will be available.
I can't wait....
