World, Writing, Wealth discussion
All Things Writing & Publishing
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What's your message to the world?
Daniel wrote: "It seems a bit odd that you just threw out this question, because I've been thinking hard about it since I stepped into this world a month ago. What is the point? What is it that drives us to put o..."It's about a bit less trivial/hard questions here -:) For better or worse (and I certainly don't mean to critisize any other group, nor to boast about this one), you'd hardly find here threads like: 'how's the weather' or 'what's for dinner'-:)
I personally think it's important to understand and ask (and try to answer) yourself the basics: of ultimate goal, motive and so on.
Self-gratification? I think it's as valid an agenda as any other! And many of us share it to this or other degree. The agenda may evolve though, as you pass the intial stage of 'acceptance'. And 'regret' is not a bad message.
I personally started with the thought that I had a story to tell. Potentially entertaining, revealing, thought-provoking. I'm not sure how good I am to tell it, but I've tried (together with a friend and co-author on the 1-st book) -:) I'm almost sure Quentin could do it better in the form of a movie.
Very often I write things and describe behavior contrary to my own belief in the hope to spur some thought and independent evaluation of the reader... Can't be sure my message comes through though...
The desire, the need to be heard is innate, primordial. Writing is a platform and publishing what we write merely amplifies what we say. For those with something to express there is no worse feeling than that of shouting into the void with no response. Downloads, reviews, sales, awards etc - for many of us, these represent a response, a validating reminder that our 'voice' is not bouncing, unheard, off the rocks.Writing is our trival smoke signal, our communication drum circle, our morse code, our sign language, our eye contact across a crowded room, commentary about the weather with a kind stranger at the bakery...
If you feel compelled to write and have done or would do so regardless, I hope regret is the last thing you would ever feel once you hit 'Publish'.
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*waves at Mehreen*Thank you. This belief explains why I felt a surge of joy and satisfaction once I started getting my first reviews and endorsements. It also explains why I could not tell you, exactly, how many total sales I have. I'm being read - my message is being heard and my connectivity with humanity has been confirmed, in a manner of speaking. My message will vary but my urge to send up smoke signals as I pound the drum will always be my motivation.
I wish there was a like button, Mehreen!
One of my messages, embedded deeply in my stories most of the time, is to argue that society needs to use reason, and to have some idea of the consequences of the science and technology we so depend on. Rightly or wrongly, I think we have a number of crises coming, and we have to think our way out of them, and it helps if you know how. Unfortunately, having nice feelings won't do anything to what nature throws at us. I have no doubt that I won't succeed, but I still think I have to try. What I have tried to do is embed this so the story can be read and hopefully enjoyed, but something might just go into the subconscious, although in two I have tried to show how science actually works. Interestingly, one got a scathing review for having to great an emphasis on science, despite the fact it was clearly flagged in the blurb.As an aside, the problem was a 1st century Roman was ordered from the future to be abducted by aliens so he could save the world later. To get the aliens' attention, he was ordered to prove the earth goes around the sun before the abduction. The interesting thing about this is, it involves only clear thinking (no maths). Even so, I doubt very many today could do that, using only information available to the 1st century (no telescopes!).
IanYou should read 'Under Siege' by George R. R. Martin. I think you would like it very much.
Tara wrote: "IanYou should read 'Under Siege' by George R. R. Martin. I think you would like it very much."
I may well do so. Thanks for the recommendation.
Tara wrote: "The desire, the need to be heard is innate, primordial. Writing is a platform and publishing what we write merely amplifies what we say. For those with something to express there is no worse feelin..."Ian wrote: "One of my messages, embedded deeply in my stories most of the time, is to argue that society needs to use reason, and to have some idea of the consequences of the science and technology we so depen..."
heavy, man.
It might take me 600 pages to say what a mother could say with one bowl of soup or a geisha say with one glance or a lieutenant could say with one tilt of his chin. We all need to be heard and hopefully, understood. Even the hermit on his lonely island is attempting to use his isolation to 'say' something.
However, if we are all more or less saying the same thing (God knows there are only so many emotions), then there might be a serious disinclination. Many ways to worship the same God, as it were. When all has been said, then what? Time to say nothing or can we actually invent new emotions and new messages?
Interesting. I would suggest that the basic human emotions are the eternal, unchanging light but we, as individuals, are unique, one of a kind prisms. The rainbows will never be exact duplicates of one another as a result. Many of us long or have longed for the object of our desire. Nothing new there. But the person Charlotte Bronte was and what she brought to the table gave us something worlds apart from a similar tale by someone like Oscar Wilde, who brought his own whole self to the enterprise. That's why Jane Eyre is not A Portrait of Dorian Gray and why we are fortunate to have both.
That is the converging and diverging points of an array of human emotions. The Heathcliffs, and the Rochesters of the world will converge and diverge largely from the types of Jane Eyre and Cathy Earnshaw. Nevertheless, these are still a handful of emotions. Passion has many colours but that many colours only, different ways to project them. Therefore, the unlikely sorts of Dorian Gray is yet another kind of an incidental passion which converges and diverges radically.
first and foremost i hope to entertain, but secondly, asIan wrote: "What I have tried to do is embed this so the story can be read and hopefully enjoyed, but something might just go into the subconscious"
i hope to do something similar. in fact, Why Don't Students Like School?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom states that stories hold a privileged place in memory. so, in terms of teaching an idea, stories are the best way to go about it.
but i don't think i'm so organized as to have a message. perhaps i have themes: female assassins; theory of everything; asian americans; san francisco bay area; the lifecycle of the universe; bio-engineering.
eventually, i might come up w/some coherent message or maybe my critics will tell me what it is.
Literature clearly has two functions:To entertain
To teach
However, when it becomes didactic, people don't like it so much. To moralise and so on so forth. Bunyan's Pilgrims Progress was a classic but didactic so I'd say less entertaining leaning on teaching. A lot to tell the world.
Alex GIt sounds like the things you mentioned are your messages :)
MehreenI partially agree with you. We differ in that I see the basic emotions as black paint and the individual manifestations of them as white paint. I feel it is impossible (or at least rare) for two people to 'add' the same amount of white to the mix. The result, in my opinion, is a billion shades of grey and a billion different stories created from just two buckets of paint. To me the human condition is not as much divergent and convergent streams as it is parallel ones. What an awesome discussion!
You're quite right. I see human emotions in nuances, not so much as black and white. Where I see they diverge is when compared to the emotions of the others. Yet there will always be some people who will feel more passionately than others as in red, redder and reddest. This is more like appearing in parallel strings as in universe but divergent as well, I think. Indeed awesome discussion.
MehreenSomething great to think about with my evening chamomile :)
Lol and I am guilty of cream and honey :)
Quite a lot of shades here: from grey to chamomile -:) Nice input.
Mehreen wrote: "However, when it becomes didactic, people don't like it so much. To moralise and so on so forth. ..."That sounds true, therefore I try to relay my message through describing different situations in the hope that the readers would at least weigh what's right and where the boundary lies.
I spotlight unlawful enrichment, corruption, hyperbolized ambition, strive for domination, filth in general in, I hope, realistic/grotesque manner. As I leave conclusions to the readers, I might be delivering quite an opposite message from the one intended -:). Yet, I hope that at least bringing some issues to the core is already of some value..
Nik made an important point - you have to show, and leave the readers to reach their own conclusions. However, I try to help a little by showing how the characters reach their conclusions, and hope some of the methodology rubs off.Speaking of shades, I see the need for something called "Fifty shades of grey". I refer, of course, to adventures in washing and pairing socks.
Of course. An author's job is to uphold the mirror, naturally. How well one has done it, is the question. My 14 year old son tells me not only to write about the human condition but how well I've done it. That's not to say that Bunyan's classic was a failure. No, it wasn't it was an allegorical description of characters. However, I can't see a publisher today publishing something as heavy as that. What sells today is primarily entertainment allowed to enter moderate difficulty levels.
So very true :(I jokingly told my husband that adding a teen zombie, vampire demon hunter to my parenting guide might not be a bad idea.
Ian wrote: "Speaking of shades, I see the need for something called "Fifty shades of grey". I refer, of course, to adventures in washing and pairing socks. ."-:)
Tara wrote: "So very true :(I jokingly told my husband that adding a teen zombie, vampire demon hunter to my parenting guide might not be a bad idea."
Sounds plausible. Jokingly or not, it might well be that the same parenting guide for a zombie family, i.e. where human heroes are replaced by zombies, may have a broad appeal. And people may reach conclusions while reading about zombies -:)
Ian - love the 50 shades/socks comment! :)Back to comment 1 from Nik. I really did waiver when it came time to actually push that "publish" button. But then I realized I would regret NOT publishing my book. Being a firm believer that one should have no regrets in life, my message is . . . push the publish button!
K. wrote: "Ian - love the 50 shades/socks comment! :)Back to comment 1 from Nik. I really did waiver when it came time to actually push that "publish" button. But then I realized I would regret NOT publishin..."
My view is, press the publish button. You have done the work, and assuming you are reasonably pleased with the outcome, what is the point of not publishing? Until it is available for others to see, all you have done is make marks on paper, or even worse, no real marks on "not paper". My view has always been, "I have done as well as I can right now. Publish!" If others don't like it, so be it.
Nik wrote: "Tara wrote: "So very true :(I jokingly told my husband that adding a teen zombie, vampire demon hunter to my parenting guide might not be a bad idea."
how about a microbiologist turned zombie hunter who teaches her kids microbiology by chopping off undead heads with her katana and then taking tissue samples.
If you never never go, you never never know - Always push the publish button. Your readers will tell you all that there is to know.
Alex G wrote: "Nik wrote: "Tara wrote: "So very true :(I jokingly told my husband that adding a teen zombie, vampire demon hunter to my parenting guide might not be a bad idea."
how about a microbiologist turn..."
Sounds like cross-pollination of Kill Bill, Jurassic & From Dusk Till Dawn -:)
Mehreen wrote: "If you never never go, you never never know - Always push the publish button. Your readers will tell you all that there is to know."Not sure about 'always'. Maybe you've written something beautiful for yourself or a nice serenade for your girl. Unpublished - it always remains beautiful. Once you publish, it might get tarnished by reviews, rates, price tags and so on -:). It becomes a product that you feel like marketing.
I personally feel kinda awkward about personal correspondence of celebs & historical figures published for everyone's knowledge..
Ian wrote: " You have done the work, and assuming you are reasonably pleased with the outcome, what is the point of not publishing? Until it is available for others to see, all you have done is make marks on paper,..."I think beyond making it more than just marks on paper, I can only imagine how many people could have had a successful and satisfying writing career but chose not to press "publish". Out of the number of people who write, we as self-published authors are a pretty small group. I think I just wanted to be in the self-published group and not the what-could-have-been group.
As for my message, I like showing that it can be done. I published my first novel while going to school and working three jobs, simply because I was passionate about it. One of the most gratifying moments was when a friend told me they were inspired to write more or read more because they saw that I published a book.
Within the books, my message is for other science fiction writers. I feel like there is a lack of new and unique ideas in the genre. My goal is to think outside the box and create completely new worlds or stories that have not previously been thought of, and encourage others to do the same.
Tyler wrote: "Ian wrote: " You have done the work, and assuming you are reasonably pleased with the outcome, what is the point of not publishing? Until it is available for others to see, all you have done is mak..."Tyler, I like to think I have new ideas is scifi although of course there is no such thing as a totally original story. My latest, for example, has dinosaurs transported to a nearby planet at the end of the cretaceous, and have evolved into a civilisation that happens to be a theocracy. It was quite fun trying to create as culture for them, such as the conflicts around acknowledging an egg.
You push the 'publish' button only when a work is meant to be shared with the public. Personal diaries, memoirs in my opinion should be kept private.
Tyler wrote: "I think beyond making it more than just marks on paper, I can only imagine how many people could have had a successful and satisfying writing career but chose not to press "publish". Out of the number of people who write, we as self-published authors are a pretty small group. I think I just wanted to be in the self-published group and not the what-could-have-been group..."Welcome to the group, Tyler. Nowadays, I think over 90% of those who'd written something not too personal and having a form of a story, poem or whatever, eventually publish. Beside other motives, the ease of publishing is just so tempting...
Hope you'll a little less hurdles to overcome in your further writing -:)
John wrote: "Message? I just want to make money! LOL"Good luck with that! Writing is not the easiest way to meet the money, but per aspera ad astra. If and when your masterpiece becomes a bestseller, it wouldn't really matter that the initial motivation was so mundane-:)
I don't know many authors who can write with only money on their mind, neither can I, but if you can and succeed it's not a shoplifting, so I see nothing wrong with that -:)
Nik wrote: "Good luck with that! Writing is not the easiest way to meet the money, but per aspera ad astra. If and when your masterpiece becomes a bestsel..."
Oh I am semi -retired so I dont need to have a bestseller, just a side income is good enough for me!
John wrote: "Message? I just want to make money! LOL"there is that.
so, you want to entertain? many times though, there's a subconscious worldview or philosophical beliefs about human nature that a writer promotes in his/her works.
(a side income. that is an interesting point of view. i wonder how many writers have that POV. (btw, the estimated US national median household income in 2014 is $53,482 according to the US Census Bureau's American Factfinder.) i'm going to start a different thread for that.)
John wrote: "Oh I am semi -retired so I dont need to have a bestseller, just a side income is good enough for me!"There is a saying that a soldier who doesn't dream of becoming a general is a bad one, so if you're in the biz for the money, you might as well strive to move up the ranks -:)
Hope the side income meets your expectations
Alex G wrote: "(btw, the estimated US national median household income in 2014 is $53,482 according to the US Census Bureau's American Factfinder.) i'm going to start a different thread for that.) .."Thanks, Alex, helpful stats. I'd been looking for this data indeed. From a glance, the household income distribution remains pretty stable and, if anything, households earning between 150k & 200k and those earning above 200k grew from roughly 4% in 2010 to roughly 5% in 2014. Wonder where a poverty line lies, whether, for example, a family with an annual income of 50K can afford decent living?
Sure, pls feel free to open a different thread
In my case, I consider my literary earnings to be pocket money. It is not that I don't want more sales, but when filling out my tax return a certain degree of realism strikes.I am going to disagree with Nik about dreaming. I have seen a number of entrepreneurs, etc, and those that have big dreams usually fail. The ones that succeed are those that stop dreaming and start doing, and concentrate on the current problems.
If so, what's your message?