Stephen Kozeniewski's Blog, page 60
July 10, 2015
July 8, 2015
"W" is for "WYTCHFIRE"
I'll bet you thought after last month's post you were done with hearing from Professor Fancypants, eh? Well, you thought wrong. Dead wrong. It just so happens that I've come into possession of a series of...well, let's just call them "answers"...to some rather arcane...well, let's just call them "questions"...well, on second thought, let's just get right to it.
About Michael Meyerhofer:
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Publisher Page
Michael Meyerhofer grew up in Iowa where he learned to cope with the unbridled excitement of the Midwest by reading books and not getting his hopes up. Probably due to his father’s influence, he developed a fondness for Star Trek, weight lifting, and collecting medieval weapons. He is also addicted to caffeine and the History Channel.
His fourth poetry book, WHAT TO DO IF YOU'RE BURIED ALIVE, was recently published by Split Lip Press. He also serves as the Poetry Editor of Atticus Review. His poetry and prose have appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Brevity, Ploughshares, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Rattle, and many other journals. He and his fiancee currently live in Fresno, California, in a little house beside a very large cactus.
Interview:
1.) Tell us a little bit about your series, especially the first book, WYTCHFIRE.
WYTCHFIRE is the story of Rowen Locke, a former orphan-turned-sellsword who gets caught in the middle of a sprawling conflict fueled by age-old prejudices (what one reader described as a thousand-year cyst about to burst), and his desperate, fallible attempts to both gain and maintain honor in a world where behaving honorably usually gets you killed. Anyway, WYTCHFIRE is Book I in the DRAGONKIN TRILOGY. KNIGHTSWRATH, the sequel, came out a few weeks ago. I've also completed a rough draft of the conclusion, tentatively titled THE WAR OF THE LOTUS.
2.) How would you describe these books, in terms of genre/subgenre?
The first book, WYTCHFIRE, is probably halfway between epic fantasy and dark fantasy. The sequel, KNIGHTSWRATH, gets significantly darker (spoiler: there's a guy contemplating whether or not to carve out his newborn son's eyes, and that's just in the prologue!). The series does have one central protagonist, but there's also a big cast of characters and a lot of interrelated conflicts. Regular fantasy fans should feel right at home, though I hope they'll also appreciate the twists I've put on some of the "traditional" ideas, like magic and honor.
3.) What inspired you to write this series?
I've always loved fantasy--dark fantasy, in particular. Also, I was born with birth defects that made me the target of a lot of bullying and teasing when I was younger, so as a child, I felt something of a kinship with people who were different, who were disliked or even hated simply based on the lottery of their birth. Eventually, this formed the basis for the discrimination that underlies the story and various conflicts of the DRAGONKIN TRILOGY.
4.) Who are some writers who have influenced your writing style?
Yikes, too many to count! Some of my biggest influences, though, were George R. R. Martin (of course), Katherine Kurtz, Raymond Feist, Richard Knaak, Lloyd Alexander, Terry Brooks, Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman, Stephen King, Brandon Sanderson, Robert E. Howard, and J.R.R. Tolkien (another "of course"). I've also been influenced by a lot of writers outside the fantasy/horror genres, including Ernest Hemingway, Shirley Jackson, Kurt Vonnegut, Flannery O'Connor, Walt Whitman, and J.D. Salinger, along with contemporary poets like Dorianne Laux, George Bilgere, Allison Joseph, Yusef Komunyakaa, Billy Collins, and Tony Hoagland.
5.) On a related note, can you discuss one author who had a big, early impact on you?
Sure! One of my favorites for many years now has been Richard Knaak. I first discovered his work when I was plowing through nearly all the books in the Dragonlance series, and I came upon his book, THE LEGEND OF HUMA. I was wary because Huma is a big, historical figure in the DRAGONLANCE books, and I was worried that actually nailing down his story in a prequel would dispel some of the mystery. Instead, it was quite the opposite. Knaak’s writing conveyed both action and emotional nuance, and I loved his portrayal of Huma as fallible and struggling. After THE LEGEND OF HUMA, I sought out pretty much everything else he’d written, and was especially a fan of the unique world and textured characters created in his DRAGONREALM books. As a side note, I’d already written WYTCHFIRE by then but was very surprised to find that Knaak also has a character named Shade (though aside from the name, the characters are completely different).
6.) What’s one thing that distinguishes your book from other fantasy books?
I’ve always liked complex plots with lots of characters (wait… is that two things?). So, while my books do have a central protagonist, you also get to see the story through different sets of eyes. I find that’s a good way to establish moral ambiguity, which is really just a fancy way of writing a story that kind of gets under your skin (but hopefully, in a good way).
7.) Tell us a little more about the conflict in your series.
The primary conflict in the DRAGONKIN TRILOGY centers around the Shel'ai, those born with the “gift” of magic. The Shel'ai serve as echoes of a dark past in which sorcerers (who gained both power and madness by draining the life-force of dragons) ruled with an iron fist. As a result, Shel'ai are almost always viewed with hatred and paranoia. Most are killed at birth, and those who survive still face a lifetime of running from mobs. However, many of the Shel'ai are far from blameless, as they've been using increasingly more brutal and desperate means to defend themselves, creating a schism in the ranks.
8.) What's the most challenging part of writing this book?
I tend to focus a lot on character development, to the point where I get almost absurdly invested in what happens to them. At the same time, especially in my stories, necessity and realism demand that awful things happen to these characters on a regular basis. I'm also a perfectionist when it comes to plot lines and dialog. Long story short, this series has given me a lot of sleepless nights.
9.) I read that you’re a history buff. Did you base any of your characters on historical figures? What about the world-building?
Ha, yes and yes! I'm kind of an amateur historian (emphasis on the amateur part) and I'm fascinated by Greek and Roman history, plus the pre-Civil War era of the United States--the good and awful elements, both. Also, I know it's a bit cliché to say this but when I was young, I spent a great deal of time studying the Holocaust, reading various memoirs and testimonials (particularly those of Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi). I guess all that went into the mental cauldron... as did stacks and stacks of X-Men comics.
About KNIGHTSWRATH:
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | iTunes
Rowen Locke has achieved his dream of becoming a Knight of the Crane, and he now bears Knightswrath, the legendary sword of Fâyu Jinn. But the land remains torn, and though Rowen suffers doubts, he would see it healed. His knightly order is not what it seems, though, and allies remain thin. When Rowen and his friends seek an alliance with the forest-dwelling Sylvs, a tangle of events results in a midnight duel that teaches Rowen a dangerous lesson and leaves him with a new companion of uncertain loyalties.
The sadistic Dhargots still threaten the kingdoms, but another menace lurks in the shadows, playing a game none can see. As Rowen struggles to prove his worth—to his allies and to himself—chaos raises its hand to strike. A price must be paid, and not even the wielder of Knightswrath will remain untouched.
About Michael Meyerhofer:
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Publisher PageMichael Meyerhofer grew up in Iowa where he learned to cope with the unbridled excitement of the Midwest by reading books and not getting his hopes up. Probably due to his father’s influence, he developed a fondness for Star Trek, weight lifting, and collecting medieval weapons. He is also addicted to caffeine and the History Channel.
His fourth poetry book, WHAT TO DO IF YOU'RE BURIED ALIVE, was recently published by Split Lip Press. He also serves as the Poetry Editor of Atticus Review. His poetry and prose have appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Brevity, Ploughshares, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Rattle, and many other journals. He and his fiancee currently live in Fresno, California, in a little house beside a very large cactus.
Interview:
1.) Tell us a little bit about your series, especially the first book, WYTCHFIRE.
WYTCHFIRE is the story of Rowen Locke, a former orphan-turned-sellsword who gets caught in the middle of a sprawling conflict fueled by age-old prejudices (what one reader described as a thousand-year cyst about to burst), and his desperate, fallible attempts to both gain and maintain honor in a world where behaving honorably usually gets you killed. Anyway, WYTCHFIRE is Book I in the DRAGONKIN TRILOGY. KNIGHTSWRATH, the sequel, came out a few weeks ago. I've also completed a rough draft of the conclusion, tentatively titled THE WAR OF THE LOTUS.
2.) How would you describe these books, in terms of genre/subgenre?
The first book, WYTCHFIRE, is probably halfway between epic fantasy and dark fantasy. The sequel, KNIGHTSWRATH, gets significantly darker (spoiler: there's a guy contemplating whether or not to carve out his newborn son's eyes, and that's just in the prologue!). The series does have one central protagonist, but there's also a big cast of characters and a lot of interrelated conflicts. Regular fantasy fans should feel right at home, though I hope they'll also appreciate the twists I've put on some of the "traditional" ideas, like magic and honor.
3.) What inspired you to write this series?
I've always loved fantasy--dark fantasy, in particular. Also, I was born with birth defects that made me the target of a lot of bullying and teasing when I was younger, so as a child, I felt something of a kinship with people who were different, who were disliked or even hated simply based on the lottery of their birth. Eventually, this formed the basis for the discrimination that underlies the story and various conflicts of the DRAGONKIN TRILOGY.
4.) Who are some writers who have influenced your writing style?
Yikes, too many to count! Some of my biggest influences, though, were George R. R. Martin (of course), Katherine Kurtz, Raymond Feist, Richard Knaak, Lloyd Alexander, Terry Brooks, Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman, Stephen King, Brandon Sanderson, Robert E. Howard, and J.R.R. Tolkien (another "of course"). I've also been influenced by a lot of writers outside the fantasy/horror genres, including Ernest Hemingway, Shirley Jackson, Kurt Vonnegut, Flannery O'Connor, Walt Whitman, and J.D. Salinger, along with contemporary poets like Dorianne Laux, George Bilgere, Allison Joseph, Yusef Komunyakaa, Billy Collins, and Tony Hoagland.
5.) On a related note, can you discuss one author who had a big, early impact on you?
Sure! One of my favorites for many years now has been Richard Knaak. I first discovered his work when I was plowing through nearly all the books in the Dragonlance series, and I came upon his book, THE LEGEND OF HUMA. I was wary because Huma is a big, historical figure in the DRAGONLANCE books, and I was worried that actually nailing down his story in a prequel would dispel some of the mystery. Instead, it was quite the opposite. Knaak’s writing conveyed both action and emotional nuance, and I loved his portrayal of Huma as fallible and struggling. After THE LEGEND OF HUMA, I sought out pretty much everything else he’d written, and was especially a fan of the unique world and textured characters created in his DRAGONREALM books. As a side note, I’d already written WYTCHFIRE by then but was very surprised to find that Knaak also has a character named Shade (though aside from the name, the characters are completely different).
6.) What’s one thing that distinguishes your book from other fantasy books?
I’ve always liked complex plots with lots of characters (wait… is that two things?). So, while my books do have a central protagonist, you also get to see the story through different sets of eyes. I find that’s a good way to establish moral ambiguity, which is really just a fancy way of writing a story that kind of gets under your skin (but hopefully, in a good way).
7.) Tell us a little more about the conflict in your series.
The primary conflict in the DRAGONKIN TRILOGY centers around the Shel'ai, those born with the “gift” of magic. The Shel'ai serve as echoes of a dark past in which sorcerers (who gained both power and madness by draining the life-force of dragons) ruled with an iron fist. As a result, Shel'ai are almost always viewed with hatred and paranoia. Most are killed at birth, and those who survive still face a lifetime of running from mobs. However, many of the Shel'ai are far from blameless, as they've been using increasingly more brutal and desperate means to defend themselves, creating a schism in the ranks.
8.) What's the most challenging part of writing this book?
I tend to focus a lot on character development, to the point where I get almost absurdly invested in what happens to them. At the same time, especially in my stories, necessity and realism demand that awful things happen to these characters on a regular basis. I'm also a perfectionist when it comes to plot lines and dialog. Long story short, this series has given me a lot of sleepless nights.
9.) I read that you’re a history buff. Did you base any of your characters on historical figures? What about the world-building?
Ha, yes and yes! I'm kind of an amateur historian (emphasis on the amateur part) and I'm fascinated by Greek and Roman history, plus the pre-Civil War era of the United States--the good and awful elements, both. Also, I know it's a bit cliché to say this but when I was young, I spent a great deal of time studying the Holocaust, reading various memoirs and testimonials (particularly those of Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi). I guess all that went into the mental cauldron... as did stacks and stacks of X-Men comics.
About KNIGHTSWRATH:
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | iTunesRowen Locke has achieved his dream of becoming a Knight of the Crane, and he now bears Knightswrath, the legendary sword of Fâyu Jinn. But the land remains torn, and though Rowen suffers doubts, he would see it healed. His knightly order is not what it seems, though, and allies remain thin. When Rowen and his friends seek an alliance with the forest-dwelling Sylvs, a tangle of events results in a midnight duel that teaches Rowen a dangerous lesson and leaves him with a new companion of uncertain loyalties.
The sadistic Dhargots still threaten the kingdoms, but another menace lurks in the shadows, playing a game none can see. As Rowen struggles to prove his worth—to his allies and to himself—chaos raises its hand to strike. A price must be paid, and not even the wielder of Knightswrath will remain untouched.
July 6, 2015
July 3, 2015
Happy 4th!
I got nothing for you today. Why are you even on the internet anyway? Go hang out by the pool or at a barbecue. Peace!
July 1, 2015
"V" is for "Vendetta"
Every morning, I thank my lucky stars for E.L. James.
I wake up, greet the sun, do a modified downward facing dog, and whisper, "Thank you. Thank you, Imaginary Sky Man, for each and every shade of grey."
You would think, in the wake of the release of GREY, and the rather ill-advised #AskELJames debacle, that the Ayatollah of Publishing had declared a fatwah against her. That Don Pinguino, representing the Big 5 Families, had ordered a vendetta. The vitriol! My God, the vitriol!
Is this level of contempt strictly necessary, especially from the authorial community? I often hear authors, especially from marginalized genres like horror, science fiction, and erotica, complain that we need to be supporting each other, not tearing one another down. Why is E.L. James the exception? Because she had the audacity to be successful?
Hell, I'm not going to front. I've poked fun at her work right here on this blog from time to time. But I'm also well aware I wouldn't exist as an independent artist if it wasn't for her. Any author published in the last five years - especially any author first published in the last five years - owes her a great debt.
So let me say a couple of things up front:
1.) I've never read a word, beyond a few excerpts on a Buzzfeed article making fun of it, of Ms. James's work.
2.) Based on what little I've read - and on the opinions of people I trust who have read her work - James's prose is terrible, possibly even laughable.
I'm being 100% up front about both of these issues so you don't think I'm missing some important point when I move on here. So let's move on, and then we'll circle back around to these points.
Setting aside the fact that authors ought to support authors as a general rule, because we're all in this boat together, let's look at this from a purely selfish perspective. The publishing industry is a bit arcane, but you're probably familiar with the way profit margins work at, say, an Italian bistro.
Things like steak and seafood don't have much profit margin because they're expensive, and there's a limit to how much you can mark it up without driving away your customers. Pasta has a great profit margin because it's cheap, and people will pay quite a bit for it. And soda has an astronomical profit margin because it costs a few cents a gallon and you can charge a few dollars a glass for it.
The whole reason a restaurant can sell prime cuts of meat for $20 is because customers are willing to buy sugar water for $3.99. One thing underwrites the other. And let me make this metaphor crystal-fucking-clear: E.L. James is underwriting hundreds, if not thousands of lesser-known authors.
You could say the same thing about Stephen King, or James Patterson, or J.K. Rowling, or, hell, James Frey or Dan Brown. It's pretty simple when you think about it. A superstar author has a mega-smash hit and exceeds all expectations, and brings in millions of dollars on a single book. Now the publishing company has millions of dollars in its reserve. It can afford to take chances on those weird, artsy little projects which the editors may have been on the fence about.
Every author published by Penguin Random House was directly underwritten by E.L. James. I might equivocate and say that a few authors who were going to pay out their advances anyway might not owe her quite so much, but the solvency of the entire company still rests on just a few superstar authors, including James.
And that's not the end of the story. Publishing is a complicated ecosystem. A pebble tossed in one bay has ripples through the whole ocean. So consider the fact that several millions of people who were not normally part of the book-buying public logged onto Amazon (or their favorite online book retailer) or walked into their favorite bookstore and grabbed a copy of one of the GREY books.
A change like that has affected the publishing industry as a whole. Entire new audiences have been opened up to the idea of buying books. Why shit on E.L. James for that? Authors who write erotica or romance have probably benefited most from the new customers which E.L. James brought into the fold, but honestly, getting more people to buy books is a good thing for the whole industry.
And, yes, again, the same could be said for King or Rowling or Myers or whoever. I'm not saying E.L. James is unique, but I feel hypocritical singing the praises of superstars I respect, without at least acknowledging the impact of one I don't.
One major impact James has had is in making self-publishing a legitimate career move. Sure, Amanda Hocking and Hugh Howey helped to pioneer that market, but E.L. James was the first superstar smash breakout success that made the publishers start coming down from their howdahs and start offering deals to self-pubbed authors. And even the ones who rejected the deals from the big boys still aspire to James-level success. Self-pubbing is a path in large part thanks to E.L. James's work in dynamiting her way through that labyrinth.
So one last point. I haven't been published by Penguin Random and I don't write love stories (that you know of, anyway) and I've never self-published. But I still owe a debt of gratitude to E.L. James, along with Stephanie Myers, Dan Brown, and all those other awful superstar writers.
There's a reason agents and publishers even still unsolicited queries. It's because HARRY POTTER came from the slush. TWILIGHT came from the slush. DIVERGENT came from the slush. FIFTY SHADES OF GREY didn't even come from the slush, it came from the fan-fic world, which was supposed to be the slush of the slush of the slush, and into the self-pubbing world, which was supposed to be the slush of the slush.
(If I just disappeared up my own asshole with that last sentence, just think of farm teams and AAA in baseball. One feeds the other feeds the other feeds the pros.)
Every huge, record-shattering literary phenomenon of the last twenty years or so has come over the transom from a relative unknown. I don't doubt that agents and publishers are ripping their hair out daily about that fact, but it doesn't change the way only literary outsiders seem capable of blowing up. And that's the whole reason every once in a blue moon they'll take a gamble on someone like me.
Now back to those two original points:
1.) I have no room to judge because I've never read E.L. James. Well, truth be told, that's probably not going to change. But you know what? There are a lot of people who think I'm terrible. I had a reader tell me to my face in public - I'm not making this up - that zombies are stupid garbage and nobody should like them. Horror authors get disrespected for their craft sight unseen all the time. I can't speak to whether James's content is dangerous, insulting, encouraging abuse, or any of the other charges that have been leveled at it. I also know I don't care. I don't believe in censorship. Have you read PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT or TROPIC OF CANCER? Once the bans on their pornographic content were lifted they started being considered classics. As long as I can go to a library and pick up a copy of MEIN KAMPF and children can see a book by Rush Limbaugh in the kiddie section of the bookstore, I'm pretty sure we're just going to have to table the whole moral panic of books having dangerous content. People will just have to be responsible about exposing themselves to the unmitigated terror of new (and quite possibly bad) ideas.
2.) E.L. James's prose is objectively terrible. Yes, and I'm about 99 44/100% certain that the prose isn't the big selling points on these books. I'm pretty sure they tap into some element of the zeitgeist, some hidden vein of desire which is near-universal and had never quite been tapped before. There are different kinds of genius, and even if you don't respect E.L. James for the aesthetic quality of her work, you'd damn well better step back and recognize her ability to write something popular, and her marketing savvy in getting people to read it. If you think The Beatles blew up because of their lyrics, go back and listen to "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" sometime.
What do you think? Let me know in the comments.
I wake up, greet the sun, do a modified downward facing dog, and whisper, "Thank you. Thank you, Imaginary Sky Man, for each and every shade of grey."
You would think, in the wake of the release of GREY, and the rather ill-advised #AskELJames debacle, that the Ayatollah of Publishing had declared a fatwah against her. That Don Pinguino, representing the Big 5 Families, had ordered a vendetta. The vitriol! My God, the vitriol!
Is this level of contempt strictly necessary, especially from the authorial community? I often hear authors, especially from marginalized genres like horror, science fiction, and erotica, complain that we need to be supporting each other, not tearing one another down. Why is E.L. James the exception? Because she had the audacity to be successful?
Hell, I'm not going to front. I've poked fun at her work right here on this blog from time to time. But I'm also well aware I wouldn't exist as an independent artist if it wasn't for her. Any author published in the last five years - especially any author first published in the last five years - owes her a great debt.
So let me say a couple of things up front:
1.) I've never read a word, beyond a few excerpts on a Buzzfeed article making fun of it, of Ms. James's work.
2.) Based on what little I've read - and on the opinions of people I trust who have read her work - James's prose is terrible, possibly even laughable.
I'm being 100% up front about both of these issues so you don't think I'm missing some important point when I move on here. So let's move on, and then we'll circle back around to these points.
Setting aside the fact that authors ought to support authors as a general rule, because we're all in this boat together, let's look at this from a purely selfish perspective. The publishing industry is a bit arcane, but you're probably familiar with the way profit margins work at, say, an Italian bistro.
Things like steak and seafood don't have much profit margin because they're expensive, and there's a limit to how much you can mark it up without driving away your customers. Pasta has a great profit margin because it's cheap, and people will pay quite a bit for it. And soda has an astronomical profit margin because it costs a few cents a gallon and you can charge a few dollars a glass for it.
The whole reason a restaurant can sell prime cuts of meat for $20 is because customers are willing to buy sugar water for $3.99. One thing underwrites the other. And let me make this metaphor crystal-fucking-clear: E.L. James is underwriting hundreds, if not thousands of lesser-known authors.
You could say the same thing about Stephen King, or James Patterson, or J.K. Rowling, or, hell, James Frey or Dan Brown. It's pretty simple when you think about it. A superstar author has a mega-smash hit and exceeds all expectations, and brings in millions of dollars on a single book. Now the publishing company has millions of dollars in its reserve. It can afford to take chances on those weird, artsy little projects which the editors may have been on the fence about.
Every author published by Penguin Random House was directly underwritten by E.L. James. I might equivocate and say that a few authors who were going to pay out their advances anyway might not owe her quite so much, but the solvency of the entire company still rests on just a few superstar authors, including James.
And that's not the end of the story. Publishing is a complicated ecosystem. A pebble tossed in one bay has ripples through the whole ocean. So consider the fact that several millions of people who were not normally part of the book-buying public logged onto Amazon (or their favorite online book retailer) or walked into their favorite bookstore and grabbed a copy of one of the GREY books.
A change like that has affected the publishing industry as a whole. Entire new audiences have been opened up to the idea of buying books. Why shit on E.L. James for that? Authors who write erotica or romance have probably benefited most from the new customers which E.L. James brought into the fold, but honestly, getting more people to buy books is a good thing for the whole industry.
And, yes, again, the same could be said for King or Rowling or Myers or whoever. I'm not saying E.L. James is unique, but I feel hypocritical singing the praises of superstars I respect, without at least acknowledging the impact of one I don't.
One major impact James has had is in making self-publishing a legitimate career move. Sure, Amanda Hocking and Hugh Howey helped to pioneer that market, but E.L. James was the first superstar smash breakout success that made the publishers start coming down from their howdahs and start offering deals to self-pubbed authors. And even the ones who rejected the deals from the big boys still aspire to James-level success. Self-pubbing is a path in large part thanks to E.L. James's work in dynamiting her way through that labyrinth.
So one last point. I haven't been published by Penguin Random and I don't write love stories (that you know of, anyway) and I've never self-published. But I still owe a debt of gratitude to E.L. James, along with Stephanie Myers, Dan Brown, and all those other awful superstar writers.
There's a reason agents and publishers even still unsolicited queries. It's because HARRY POTTER came from the slush. TWILIGHT came from the slush. DIVERGENT came from the slush. FIFTY SHADES OF GREY didn't even come from the slush, it came from the fan-fic world, which was supposed to be the slush of the slush of the slush, and into the self-pubbing world, which was supposed to be the slush of the slush.
(If I just disappeared up my own asshole with that last sentence, just think of farm teams and AAA in baseball. One feeds the other feeds the other feeds the pros.)
Every huge, record-shattering literary phenomenon of the last twenty years or so has come over the transom from a relative unknown. I don't doubt that agents and publishers are ripping their hair out daily about that fact, but it doesn't change the way only literary outsiders seem capable of blowing up. And that's the whole reason every once in a blue moon they'll take a gamble on someone like me.
Now back to those two original points:
1.) I have no room to judge because I've never read E.L. James. Well, truth be told, that's probably not going to change. But you know what? There are a lot of people who think I'm terrible. I had a reader tell me to my face in public - I'm not making this up - that zombies are stupid garbage and nobody should like them. Horror authors get disrespected for their craft sight unseen all the time. I can't speak to whether James's content is dangerous, insulting, encouraging abuse, or any of the other charges that have been leveled at it. I also know I don't care. I don't believe in censorship. Have you read PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT or TROPIC OF CANCER? Once the bans on their pornographic content were lifted they started being considered classics. As long as I can go to a library and pick up a copy of MEIN KAMPF and children can see a book by Rush Limbaugh in the kiddie section of the bookstore, I'm pretty sure we're just going to have to table the whole moral panic of books having dangerous content. People will just have to be responsible about exposing themselves to the unmitigated terror of new (and quite possibly bad) ideas.
2.) E.L. James's prose is objectively terrible. Yes, and I'm about 99 44/100% certain that the prose isn't the big selling points on these books. I'm pretty sure they tap into some element of the zeitgeist, some hidden vein of desire which is near-universal and had never quite been tapped before. There are different kinds of genius, and even if you don't respect E.L. James for the aesthetic quality of her work, you'd damn well better step back and recognize her ability to write something popular, and her marketing savvy in getting people to read it. If you think The Beatles blew up because of their lyrics, go back and listen to "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" sometime.
What do you think? Let me know in the comments.
June 29, 2015
Support Sinister Grin!
I mentioned in last week's post that there are ups and downs to crowdfunding, ways to abuse it and ways to us it correctly, and we're all feeling our way forward on the subject. No sooner did I post that than I caught wind of an Indiegogo campaign from a great small press I've already gone on the record as considering one of the best outfits around, Sinister Grin. As I mentioned in my post on the subject, Indiegogo is a lot less skeevy than Kickstarter actual, so that already puts SG ahead of the curve in my book.
More important than their choice of crowdfunding platform, though, SG produces great work from top-notch authors, and I mean top notch. So if you're of a mind to support independent horror, please consider contributing to their Indiegogo campaign.
More important than their choice of crowdfunding platform, though, SG produces great work from top-notch authors, and I mean top notch. So if you're of a mind to support independent horror, please consider contributing to their Indiegogo campaign.
June 26, 2015
June 24, 2015
"U" is for "Ultron"
This post isn't really about Ultron. Except maybe that he's a jerk and some of the people I will be talking about will be jerks? I dunno. It just seemed like a good thing to name a post.
The actual subject of this post is "Unmentionable." As in, unmentionable words. If you've been anywhere near a device or another human being in the last week, you'll have heard that the president - our sitting president of these United States, Barack Obama - used the N-word on Marc Maron's podcast.
Much hay has been made in the media and the social media about this event. Actually, "event" seems like too strong of a word. Occurrence, maybe? Happenstance? Anyway, people are riled up about it. It's got us talking about censorship and race relations in this country, so that's a good thing.
I've been thinking lately about this need to bowdlerize words, and what that really represents. When I was a kid, I remember referring to the F-word and the S-word, and feeling very on the fence about whether "crap" and "pussy" were swears, and whether I could get in trouble for saying them. At my age, and after a four-year stint in the army, there is literally no traditional curse word which holds any kind of taboo for me.
The words that I consider truly offensive, that even as a writer I deploy with great sparseness and only after long deliberation, are a handful of ethnic and misogynistic slurs. Perhaps it makes me a coward, but, yes, even in the context of this blog post about unmentionable words, I won't be deploying the actual N-word or C-word, or a slur against Jewish people which begins with a "K."
I've had characters say these words. BRAINEATER JONES was set in the 1930s, and after reading a lot of the literature of the time, I realized that it was dishonest to pretend like white people in that era were concerned with sparing feelings. These words which we consider the height of taboo today were tossed around with a casualness that beggars the imagination. And, perhaps even more interesting, the silly words which we're allowed to say on basic cable were things you didn't say in mixed company in the '30s.
It's a tightrope walk for me as an author to know that I'm writing for the sensibilities of a modern audience and yet trying to stay true to a period, or perhaps a character. It's kind of a cliché that villains are the only ones who can kick puppies, smoke, and use slurs (consider Dennis Hopper in "Land of the Dead") but often that's true. Because how can I make a bigot sympathetic to a modern audience? Certainly, it's possible. Dirty Harry - well, admittedly that was in the 70's - but he springs to mind.
It's just kind of a tough sell. It's a lot easier to extricate bigoted elements from a hero or anti-hero altogether rather than deal with all that baggage. No one (for the most part) likes to consider themselves racist or sexist, so when you throw that element in, an audience almost immediately refuses to sympathize.
So what's the big deal? These are just words, after all. Well, yes, but words have power. 2 billion-odd people around the world live their lives by the words of a five thousand year old book still today. And there are any number of sentences that will raise your hackles, send you into a fury, or please you almost orgasmically for the rest of the day. And then there are individual words so potent in their use and so deeply entrenched in historical usage, that the word alone terrifies people.
These are the words we bowdlerize. When "fuck" no longer meant anything to me, I stopped calling it "the F-word." But there are soccer moms and infants running around saying "darn" and "pee-pee" because those are the words which have power over them. I suppose we ought not to judge people with different sensibilities - after all, as I mentioned last week, there are people who find the word "moist" repulsive for no real compelling reason.
I think perhaps what unites the words we bowdlerize are that they can be used as weapons. If someone said "Fuck you" to me when I was twelve (or even in certain circumstances today) it would probably really rile me up. Curse words are like generic weapons: a bullet or a knife tossed in your general direction. The slurs that cause real pain, the N-word, the C-word, and so forth, are like a laser-guided missile that can only harm one particular kind of person. And every time we deploy it we harm all of that kind of person, not just the individual it's directed against.
Calling someone an "asshole" is like saying "You're worthy of insult because of your actions, whoever you are." Calling someone an N-word is like saying, "You're worthy of insult because of who you are, regardless of your actions." And what's the proper response to that? An asshole can stop acting like an asshole. A POC or a woman can never stop being what they are, no matter how they act.
I might be disappearing up my own asshole at this point. These are thorny, complicated issues and I don't even really know what I'm trying to prove or to who. Maybe we could have a (civil, please!) discussion in the comments. Let me know what you think!
The actual subject of this post is "Unmentionable." As in, unmentionable words. If you've been anywhere near a device or another human being in the last week, you'll have heard that the president - our sitting president of these United States, Barack Obama - used the N-word on Marc Maron's podcast.
Much hay has been made in the media and the social media about this event. Actually, "event" seems like too strong of a word. Occurrence, maybe? Happenstance? Anyway, people are riled up about it. It's got us talking about censorship and race relations in this country, so that's a good thing.
I've been thinking lately about this need to bowdlerize words, and what that really represents. When I was a kid, I remember referring to the F-word and the S-word, and feeling very on the fence about whether "crap" and "pussy" were swears, and whether I could get in trouble for saying them. At my age, and after a four-year stint in the army, there is literally no traditional curse word which holds any kind of taboo for me.
The words that I consider truly offensive, that even as a writer I deploy with great sparseness and only after long deliberation, are a handful of ethnic and misogynistic slurs. Perhaps it makes me a coward, but, yes, even in the context of this blog post about unmentionable words, I won't be deploying the actual N-word or C-word, or a slur against Jewish people which begins with a "K."
I've had characters say these words. BRAINEATER JONES was set in the 1930s, and after reading a lot of the literature of the time, I realized that it was dishonest to pretend like white people in that era were concerned with sparing feelings. These words which we consider the height of taboo today were tossed around with a casualness that beggars the imagination. And, perhaps even more interesting, the silly words which we're allowed to say on basic cable were things you didn't say in mixed company in the '30s.
It's a tightrope walk for me as an author to know that I'm writing for the sensibilities of a modern audience and yet trying to stay true to a period, or perhaps a character. It's kind of a cliché that villains are the only ones who can kick puppies, smoke, and use slurs (consider Dennis Hopper in "Land of the Dead") but often that's true. Because how can I make a bigot sympathetic to a modern audience? Certainly, it's possible. Dirty Harry - well, admittedly that was in the 70's - but he springs to mind.
It's just kind of a tough sell. It's a lot easier to extricate bigoted elements from a hero or anti-hero altogether rather than deal with all that baggage. No one (for the most part) likes to consider themselves racist or sexist, so when you throw that element in, an audience almost immediately refuses to sympathize.
So what's the big deal? These are just words, after all. Well, yes, but words have power. 2 billion-odd people around the world live their lives by the words of a five thousand year old book still today. And there are any number of sentences that will raise your hackles, send you into a fury, or please you almost orgasmically for the rest of the day. And then there are individual words so potent in their use and so deeply entrenched in historical usage, that the word alone terrifies people.
These are the words we bowdlerize. When "fuck" no longer meant anything to me, I stopped calling it "the F-word." But there are soccer moms and infants running around saying "darn" and "pee-pee" because those are the words which have power over them. I suppose we ought not to judge people with different sensibilities - after all, as I mentioned last week, there are people who find the word "moist" repulsive for no real compelling reason.
I think perhaps what unites the words we bowdlerize are that they can be used as weapons. If someone said "Fuck you" to me when I was twelve (or even in certain circumstances today) it would probably really rile me up. Curse words are like generic weapons: a bullet or a knife tossed in your general direction. The slurs that cause real pain, the N-word, the C-word, and so forth, are like a laser-guided missile that can only harm one particular kind of person. And every time we deploy it we harm all of that kind of person, not just the individual it's directed against.
Calling someone an "asshole" is like saying "You're worthy of insult because of your actions, whoever you are." Calling someone an N-word is like saying, "You're worthy of insult because of who you are, regardless of your actions." And what's the proper response to that? An asshole can stop acting like an asshole. A POC or a woman can never stop being what they are, no matter how they act.
I might be disappearing up my own asshole at this point. These are thorny, complicated issues and I don't even really know what I'm trying to prove or to who. Maybe we could have a (civil, please!) discussion in the comments. Let me know what you think!
June 22, 2015
A Lifetime of Running from Mobs and Armies (Guest Post from Michael Meyerhofer, Author of KNIGHTSWRATH)
HAWM, loyal squires and knights of Bloglandia! Hark, for this morrow welcomst we to the blog, yon proud maester of poesy and ryme, Michael of Clan Meyerhofer! Lest I spoil thine sighted eyes with further medieval-speak, let us fete our guest with mead, mutton, and much cheering!
About Michael Meyerhofer:
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Publisher Page
Michael Meyerhofer grew up in Iowa where he learned to cope with the unbridled excitement of the Midwest by reading books and not getting his hopes up. Probably due to his father’s influence, he developed a fondness for Star Trek, weight lifting, and collecting medieval weapons. He is also addicted to caffeine and the History Channel.
His fourth poetry book, What To Do If You’re Buried Alive, was recently published by Split Lip Press. He also serves as the Poetry Editor of Atticus Review. His poetry and prose have appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Brevity, Ploughshares, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Rattle, and many other journals. He and his fiancee currently live in Fresno, California, in a little house beside a very large cactus.
Guest Post:
People who have read WYTCHFIRE know that the world of the DRAGONKIN TRILOGY is not always a friendly place, and that will grow even more apparent in KNIGHTSWRATH. This is a world where those born with the “gift” of magic are often killed at birth, and even if they do survive, they face a lifetime of running from mobs and armies. But this is also a world in which the people who wield magic (called the Shel’ai) sometimes use unnecessarily brutal methods to defend themselves. Put another way, there’s a great deal of moral ambiguity built into these conflicts, and like Rowen Locke (the everyman protagonist), the reader might not always know exactly who is right and who is wrong.
Furthermore, not all these conflicts involve magic. Some, sadly, could have been taken from our own newspaper headlines. For example, orphans in the slums of Lyos (also called Dark Quarter) have to worry about a lot more than starvation, and there are hints that especially during his childhood, Rowen fought off opponents who, in one sense, were far more sinister than greatwolves, sellswords, and vengeful sorcerers.
Much has been made (and for good reason) of the way sexual violence has been handled in "Game of Thrones," HBO’s epic (and, lately, increasingly loose) adaptation of George R. R. Martin’s fantastic series, A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE. I reside in the camp that says dark fantasy should be gritty and realistic, but I also hate it when violence (especially sexual violence) is used purely for shock value. To me, that isn’t just irresponsible writing; it’s also lazy. So even though the books of the DRAGONKIN TRILOGY are unapologetically brutal at times, I hope readers will notice the driving purpose behind the various conflicts.
One thing I’ve also learned as a writer is that you don’t always have to show the monster. Often, you get more psychological mileage out of referencing dark events without actually showing them, which also allows you to bypass the whole, muddy debate over what is and what isn’t gratuitous. Igrid, a new character in KNIGHTSWRATH, is a prime example of this. Without giving spoilers, I think it’s safe to say that Igrid’s past is even more troubling than Rowen’s, which meant I could have included some pretty graphic flashbacks. I decided to avoid this, though, because fantasy readers are smart and imaginative, and often, a quick reference can speak volumes.
All that being said, another thing I avoided in KNIGHTSWRATH was the impulse to make things darker by filtering out my natural love of gallows humor. Human beings in the real world often use humor to deal with messy situations, and the characters in the DRAGONKIN TRILOGY are no different. In fact, I think that Jalist would make a good stand-up comic. And hopefully, readers will sense that’s there hope and a kind of wild beauty throughout the world of the DRAGONKIN TRILOGY, too. After all, that’s what Rowen, Silwren, and the others are fighting for.
About KNIGHTSWRATH:
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | iTunes
Rowen Locke has achieved his dream of becoming a Knight of the Crane, and he now bears Knightswrath, the legendary sword of Fâyu Jinn. But the land remains torn, and though Rowen suffers doubts, he would see it healed. His knightly order is not what it seems, though, and allies remain thin. When Rowen and his friends seek an alliance with the forest-dwelling Sylvs, a tangle of events results in a midnight duel that teaches Rowen a dangerous lesson and leaves him with a new companion of uncertain loyalties.
The sadistic Dhargots still threaten the kingdoms, but another menace lurks in the shadows, playing a game none can see. As Rowen struggles to prove his worth—to his allies and to himself—chaos raises its hand to strike. A price must be paid, and not even the wielder of Knightswrath will remain untouched.
About Michael Meyerhofer:
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Publisher PageMichael Meyerhofer grew up in Iowa where he learned to cope with the unbridled excitement of the Midwest by reading books and not getting his hopes up. Probably due to his father’s influence, he developed a fondness for Star Trek, weight lifting, and collecting medieval weapons. He is also addicted to caffeine and the History Channel.
His fourth poetry book, What To Do If You’re Buried Alive, was recently published by Split Lip Press. He also serves as the Poetry Editor of Atticus Review. His poetry and prose have appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Brevity, Ploughshares, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Rattle, and many other journals. He and his fiancee currently live in Fresno, California, in a little house beside a very large cactus.
Guest Post:
People who have read WYTCHFIRE know that the world of the DRAGONKIN TRILOGY is not always a friendly place, and that will grow even more apparent in KNIGHTSWRATH. This is a world where those born with the “gift” of magic are often killed at birth, and even if they do survive, they face a lifetime of running from mobs and armies. But this is also a world in which the people who wield magic (called the Shel’ai) sometimes use unnecessarily brutal methods to defend themselves. Put another way, there’s a great deal of moral ambiguity built into these conflicts, and like Rowen Locke (the everyman protagonist), the reader might not always know exactly who is right and who is wrong.
Furthermore, not all these conflicts involve magic. Some, sadly, could have been taken from our own newspaper headlines. For example, orphans in the slums of Lyos (also called Dark Quarter) have to worry about a lot more than starvation, and there are hints that especially during his childhood, Rowen fought off opponents who, in one sense, were far more sinister than greatwolves, sellswords, and vengeful sorcerers.
Much has been made (and for good reason) of the way sexual violence has been handled in "Game of Thrones," HBO’s epic (and, lately, increasingly loose) adaptation of George R. R. Martin’s fantastic series, A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE. I reside in the camp that says dark fantasy should be gritty and realistic, but I also hate it when violence (especially sexual violence) is used purely for shock value. To me, that isn’t just irresponsible writing; it’s also lazy. So even though the books of the DRAGONKIN TRILOGY are unapologetically brutal at times, I hope readers will notice the driving purpose behind the various conflicts.
One thing I’ve also learned as a writer is that you don’t always have to show the monster. Often, you get more psychological mileage out of referencing dark events without actually showing them, which also allows you to bypass the whole, muddy debate over what is and what isn’t gratuitous. Igrid, a new character in KNIGHTSWRATH, is a prime example of this. Without giving spoilers, I think it’s safe to say that Igrid’s past is even more troubling than Rowen’s, which meant I could have included some pretty graphic flashbacks. I decided to avoid this, though, because fantasy readers are smart and imaginative, and often, a quick reference can speak volumes.
All that being said, another thing I avoided in KNIGHTSWRATH was the impulse to make things darker by filtering out my natural love of gallows humor. Human beings in the real world often use humor to deal with messy situations, and the characters in the DRAGONKIN TRILOGY are no different. In fact, I think that Jalist would make a good stand-up comic. And hopefully, readers will sense that’s there hope and a kind of wild beauty throughout the world of the DRAGONKIN TRILOGY, too. After all, that’s what Rowen, Silwren, and the others are fighting for.
About KNIGHTSWRATH:
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | iTunesRowen Locke has achieved his dream of becoming a Knight of the Crane, and he now bears Knightswrath, the legendary sword of Fâyu Jinn. But the land remains torn, and though Rowen suffers doubts, he would see it healed. His knightly order is not what it seems, though, and allies remain thin. When Rowen and his friends seek an alliance with the forest-dwelling Sylvs, a tangle of events results in a midnight duel that teaches Rowen a dangerous lesson and leaves him with a new companion of uncertain loyalties.
The sadistic Dhargots still threaten the kingdoms, but another menace lurks in the shadows, playing a game none can see. As Rowen struggles to prove his worth—to his allies and to himself—chaos raises its hand to strike. A price must be paid, and not even the wielder of Knightswrath will remain untouched.
June 19, 2015
On Kickstarting
Internet culture is an endless source of fascination to me. The internet, even some 35 (ish?) years after its inception, is still very much the Wild West. New, game-changing hardware, software, websites, and apps seem to pop up daily. Facebook basically IS the internet, and that didn't exist until 10 years ago. Twitter didn't exist until what, 7 years ago? What about the iPhone, for that matter?
We're all kind of learning together as a society and individually what it's like to have virtual lives. My alma mater has the distinction of having the first person who was fired due to social media, based on a MySpace (!) pic back in, I think, 2006. Together we're all navigating the difference between personal, professional, and virtual (and the overlap between the same) in an environment that changes constantly. It's all quite a lot to take in, actually.
So I'll try to be ginger, or at least level-headed with this topic. Kickstarter is a relatively new trend. (And while I know there are several major sites with various modus operandi - Indiegogo, GoFundMe, Patreon, and so forth - for our purposes I'm just going to be referring to the crowdfunding movement as Kickstarter or Kickstarting, mmkay?) I have friends who despise the very concept of Kickstarter, think it ought to be illegal, even. I guess there's something to be said for that.
It's a little bit gross. It's a little bit gauche. I know I said I wasn't going to get into the vagaries of the various Kickstarting sites, but Patreon in particular seems like a rather grotesque money grab. "Pay me to do what I do!" Um...okay. Shouldn't you get paid on the back end if what you do is worth paying for?
There's also (obviously) value in what Kickstarter does. Kickstarter is (for 2015 at least) the apex of the democratization of art. It's the democratization of funding, at long last. For countless centuries we worked on a patronage system, where rich kings and nobles underwrote the efforts of their pet artists, and that evolved into the industrial studio/publisher model of the 19th and 20th century, which wasn't a whole lot better, except it was slightly more of a meritocracy. At least, in the sense, that if you could convince a studio head that what you were producing was going to make money, he might front you the money you needed to make the product.
Now the fans can prove directly their devotion to a movie, book, game, whatever by acting as the studio. It used to be that all a fan could do was plead their case with the studio. (Hey, it got us a third season of "Star Trek." And six episodes of "Jerico." So, you know, ups and downs.)
Like I said, and like some of my friends believe, this feels a bit exploitative. Okay, so you're a fan of Care Bears? Kickstart the Care Bears movie! We'll even send you a sticker if you donate a certain amount! And then after that you've won...the opportunity to buy a ticket to the Care Bears movie!
Well, it certainly flips the traditional speculative model on its head. But it does seem to place an undue burden on fans. Of course, no one's holding a damn gun to anybody's head. If you want to donate twenty bucks to have an opportunity to spend nine bucks on a movie ticket later, nobody's going to stop you. And I guess it does mean that you can put your money where your mouth is in terms of fandom.
What sometimes gets lost in the sauce here is all the vig Kickstarter is skimming off the top. Kickstarter, and to varying degrees its competitors, all take a slice of the pie. Every pie. So from the jackass who wanted $18 to make potato salad all the way up to Zach Braff trying to start a new studio-quality movie, Kickstarter is sitting in the background making a profit. It's not illegal - most scams aren't - but it certainly seems to be a bit of a grey area morally, if not ethically.
Hey, I'm not made of stone. And I'm not anti-Kickstarter, either. I had a very good friend's house burn down and I threw a few bucks to I think it was his GoFundMe campaign. And I've contributed to charity anthologies and a few other things I either thought were worthy or were being run by a friend. I can't deny the efficacies or the draw of Kickstarter.
What I really want to circle back around to, but I never can because of my ceaseless bloviating, is whether we're ushering in a new era of digital panhandling, and whether that should be considered socially acceptable. Like I said, there are valuable Kickastarter campaigns and there are total horseshit, and they run the gamut from respectable to detestable. And it's almost impossible to translate any online activity into a direct meatspace counterpart. But that being said, if I took my guitar and sat on a street corner asking for change to make my art, there's a certain level of scorn society would heap upon me. Not so much if I made a Kickstarter to put out a CD.
Actually, do people still put out CDs? Do people still buy one or two CDs a year? Let me know in the comments if you want two CDs.
I'm increasingly seeing authors using Kickstarter for a general sort of "pay for me to live" type service. I understand Kickstarter campaigns for individual projects, but this seems like a strange, relatively recent development in the crazy world that is online life. Hey, I'm a writer. I get that it sucks to write things on spec. You put in hundreds of hours of work on a novel, then hundreds of more hours trying to sell it, hoping that maybe somebody somewhere will want to publish it. And then even if you're lucky enough to get it published (or go through the additional hoops of self-publishing) odds are damn good it won't sell.
But now we're talking about flipping that paradigm. Instead of writing a book on spec, seeing if it sells, improving your craft, and trying to sell another book, some authors are now asking for money up front. Give me the money now, the concept seems to be, so that I can subsist as an artist, and produce my work.
Partially this raises my hackles because I have a day job, most writers have day jobs (and some a damn sight shittier than mine) and support themselves while doing the book thing, dreaming of a day when their work is good enough to quit the day job and subsist organically. Of course, that's all a very narrow-minded and, frankly, big-C conservative way of looking at life, so I don't necessarily want my gut reaction to be the final thought on the matter. We all know the things we say and do online aren't the same things we would say and do in the real world. But if what we would scorn as panhandling or a pyramid scheme in the real world gains respectability as crowdsourcing in the virtual world, why not a new paradigm for not being a starving artist?
As I said, the patronage system was pretty shitty. It led to a lot of shitty art that flattered the patron because of course it did. And the studio system led to a lot of shlock, calculated (in the coldest imaginable sense of the word) to make money. I imagine a system where artists are essentially free to do whatever they want, free fro the shackles of economic reality anyway, would be a whole new thing. It might be beautiful and transcendent and lead to art that otherwise would never make it past an editor or a test audience. Or, fuck, it could lead to a bunch of masturbatory bullshit because nobody's striving for anything anymore. I don't know.
What do you think?
We're all kind of learning together as a society and individually what it's like to have virtual lives. My alma mater has the distinction of having the first person who was fired due to social media, based on a MySpace (!) pic back in, I think, 2006. Together we're all navigating the difference between personal, professional, and virtual (and the overlap between the same) in an environment that changes constantly. It's all quite a lot to take in, actually.
So I'll try to be ginger, or at least level-headed with this topic. Kickstarter is a relatively new trend. (And while I know there are several major sites with various modus operandi - Indiegogo, GoFundMe, Patreon, and so forth - for our purposes I'm just going to be referring to the crowdfunding movement as Kickstarter or Kickstarting, mmkay?) I have friends who despise the very concept of Kickstarter, think it ought to be illegal, even. I guess there's something to be said for that.
It's a little bit gross. It's a little bit gauche. I know I said I wasn't going to get into the vagaries of the various Kickstarting sites, but Patreon in particular seems like a rather grotesque money grab. "Pay me to do what I do!" Um...okay. Shouldn't you get paid on the back end if what you do is worth paying for?
There's also (obviously) value in what Kickstarter does. Kickstarter is (for 2015 at least) the apex of the democratization of art. It's the democratization of funding, at long last. For countless centuries we worked on a patronage system, where rich kings and nobles underwrote the efforts of their pet artists, and that evolved into the industrial studio/publisher model of the 19th and 20th century, which wasn't a whole lot better, except it was slightly more of a meritocracy. At least, in the sense, that if you could convince a studio head that what you were producing was going to make money, he might front you the money you needed to make the product.
Now the fans can prove directly their devotion to a movie, book, game, whatever by acting as the studio. It used to be that all a fan could do was plead their case with the studio. (Hey, it got us a third season of "Star Trek." And six episodes of "Jerico." So, you know, ups and downs.)
Like I said, and like some of my friends believe, this feels a bit exploitative. Okay, so you're a fan of Care Bears? Kickstart the Care Bears movie! We'll even send you a sticker if you donate a certain amount! And then after that you've won...the opportunity to buy a ticket to the Care Bears movie!
Well, it certainly flips the traditional speculative model on its head. But it does seem to place an undue burden on fans. Of course, no one's holding a damn gun to anybody's head. If you want to donate twenty bucks to have an opportunity to spend nine bucks on a movie ticket later, nobody's going to stop you. And I guess it does mean that you can put your money where your mouth is in terms of fandom.
What sometimes gets lost in the sauce here is all the vig Kickstarter is skimming off the top. Kickstarter, and to varying degrees its competitors, all take a slice of the pie. Every pie. So from the jackass who wanted $18 to make potato salad all the way up to Zach Braff trying to start a new studio-quality movie, Kickstarter is sitting in the background making a profit. It's not illegal - most scams aren't - but it certainly seems to be a bit of a grey area morally, if not ethically.
Hey, I'm not made of stone. And I'm not anti-Kickstarter, either. I had a very good friend's house burn down and I threw a few bucks to I think it was his GoFundMe campaign. And I've contributed to charity anthologies and a few other things I either thought were worthy or were being run by a friend. I can't deny the efficacies or the draw of Kickstarter.
What I really want to circle back around to, but I never can because of my ceaseless bloviating, is whether we're ushering in a new era of digital panhandling, and whether that should be considered socially acceptable. Like I said, there are valuable Kickastarter campaigns and there are total horseshit, and they run the gamut from respectable to detestable. And it's almost impossible to translate any online activity into a direct meatspace counterpart. But that being said, if I took my guitar and sat on a street corner asking for change to make my art, there's a certain level of scorn society would heap upon me. Not so much if I made a Kickstarter to put out a CD.
Actually, do people still put out CDs? Do people still buy one or two CDs a year? Let me know in the comments if you want two CDs.
I'm increasingly seeing authors using Kickstarter for a general sort of "pay for me to live" type service. I understand Kickstarter campaigns for individual projects, but this seems like a strange, relatively recent development in the crazy world that is online life. Hey, I'm a writer. I get that it sucks to write things on spec. You put in hundreds of hours of work on a novel, then hundreds of more hours trying to sell it, hoping that maybe somebody somewhere will want to publish it. And then even if you're lucky enough to get it published (or go through the additional hoops of self-publishing) odds are damn good it won't sell.
But now we're talking about flipping that paradigm. Instead of writing a book on spec, seeing if it sells, improving your craft, and trying to sell another book, some authors are now asking for money up front. Give me the money now, the concept seems to be, so that I can subsist as an artist, and produce my work.
Partially this raises my hackles because I have a day job, most writers have day jobs (and some a damn sight shittier than mine) and support themselves while doing the book thing, dreaming of a day when their work is good enough to quit the day job and subsist organically. Of course, that's all a very narrow-minded and, frankly, big-C conservative way of looking at life, so I don't necessarily want my gut reaction to be the final thought on the matter. We all know the things we say and do online aren't the same things we would say and do in the real world. But if what we would scorn as panhandling or a pyramid scheme in the real world gains respectability as crowdsourcing in the virtual world, why not a new paradigm for not being a starving artist?
As I said, the patronage system was pretty shitty. It led to a lot of shitty art that flattered the patron because of course it did. And the studio system led to a lot of shlock, calculated (in the coldest imaginable sense of the word) to make money. I imagine a system where artists are essentially free to do whatever they want, free fro the shackles of economic reality anyway, would be a whole new thing. It might be beautiful and transcendent and lead to art that otherwise would never make it past an editor or a test audience. Or, fuck, it could lead to a bunch of masturbatory bullshit because nobody's striving for anything anymore. I don't know.
What do you think?
