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Nov. 4th, 2017 05:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatEh struggling with the whole writing bit at the moment. The current sci-fi story I'm working on, I have plotted out in my head, but a major climatic plot point is not quite working out the way it did in my head. Sometimes stories work better in one's head than outside of it. This is true with actually everything to be honest.
I wonder if living alone lends towards social awkwardness? Or not?
Years ago, I had a discussion about copyright law with an amateur attorney, who was working in subrights, licensing and contract. One of the biggest problems in publishing is there are a lot of amateur attorneys, basically folks who never studied law, working with contractual and copyright law.
This gal fit the mold. She also wasn't that bright and a bit of an opportunist, which I discovered the hard way -- ie. when she stabbed me in the back, then back-pedaled, got upset about it, developed a conscience and told me she was doing it. (Weird experience. Taught me a lot about people and a lot about the publishing industry. Half of my negative attitude about the industry is in direct relation to that experience.)
Anywho our discussion...was about fanfic. She saw it as completely illegal. It's not. There's an exception -- it's called the fair rights clause -- under copyright law, that allows people to play with content, to interact with it, and to comment on it. Fanfic is only illegal to the extent that it compromises the original work, which in most cases is highly unlikely. That was in the 1990s and early 00s, publishing's attitude towards fanfic has of course changed, along with it's attitude towards self-published works and works published on the internet.
I like fanfic. It can, if done well, enhance a story by filling in the gaps or playing with the characters in a new way. But I also tend to think outside boxes or non-linearally, which is what fanic is -- it lives outside the proverbial box. I read it here and there. My only difficulty is it rarely deals with stories or characters that interest me. I don't write it, mainly because I'm not really that fannish about anything at the moment. I did write a bit of it when I was into Buffy. But I prefer to create my own characters and world, mainly because I clearly have control issues and don't like the idea of having to work in someone else's sandbox, I prefer to be in my own.
Quiet day. Watched Grey's (which was okay for the most part, very happy they broke up Ameila and Owen, which did not work as a couple), Crazy Ex-Girlfriend which continues to surprise me and had an interesting number by Josh Groban this week, and The Inhumans which I'm enjoying and watching even if no one else is (don't really care that much, I often like weird things). For dinner and lunch had an "Against the Grain Pizza" which is basically made of various cheeses, a little yeast, and pepproni and tomatoes...rather high in calcium and protein. Also vitamin C and A, believe it or not. It may give me gas later -- cheese often does, but so far, na da. Drinking vodka and grapefruite juice. Which is making my lips and fingers numb. Alcohol, I have to watch, mainly because it has the lovely side effect of removing all evidence of the essential tremor...so getting addicted to it...could happen. As a result, I do it sparingly. Also I hate the feeling of being drunk or losing control.
Did walk to Courtelyou and back, which is about 1 mile, with heavy bags on the way home. Lovely day. Saw a rainbow in a bunch of clouds, not full rainbow, just a small sketch of one. It was pretty and weird at the same time. And read stuff on social media. Unsurprisingly, DW correspondence list was more helpful than FB regarding political issues. FB is really not helpful at all regarding political issues -- it's all raw emotion and screaming. I find FB a bit frustrating at times. I had a weird discussion with a member of my church about whether emotions should dictate political outcomes. He asserted that they always will regardless. That they dictate everything and no one pays attention to facts. This is irritated me. People are stupid, I thought. And backed away. Remembering a bit of really good advice I received this week from a co-worker: "hate the behavior not the person." It's what she tells her kids. She's right. Too often we define people by behavior or demonize them by it, when people are complex and behavior can and does change. We have no idea why people behave the way they do, it's often determined by outside factors, biology, etc. Someone who did something crappy one day, might never do it another day...be careful not to define people solely by their actions. Actually, it's probably a good practice not to define others at all. Hard. But a good one.
Thinking about doing a top ten action movie list...assuming I can come up with them. I think I can, I love action movies. You are talking to a culture junkie here...I tend to like every genre, with few exceptions.
I wonder if living alone lends towards social awkwardness? Or not?
Years ago, I had a discussion about copyright law with an amateur attorney, who was working in subrights, licensing and contract. One of the biggest problems in publishing is there are a lot of amateur attorneys, basically folks who never studied law, working with contractual and copyright law.
This gal fit the mold. She also wasn't that bright and a bit of an opportunist, which I discovered the hard way -- ie. when she stabbed me in the back, then back-pedaled, got upset about it, developed a conscience and told me she was doing it. (Weird experience. Taught me a lot about people and a lot about the publishing industry. Half of my negative attitude about the industry is in direct relation to that experience.)
Anywho our discussion...was about fanfic. She saw it as completely illegal. It's not. There's an exception -- it's called the fair rights clause -- under copyright law, that allows people to play with content, to interact with it, and to comment on it. Fanfic is only illegal to the extent that it compromises the original work, which in most cases is highly unlikely. That was in the 1990s and early 00s, publishing's attitude towards fanfic has of course changed, along with it's attitude towards self-published works and works published on the internet.
I like fanfic. It can, if done well, enhance a story by filling in the gaps or playing with the characters in a new way. But I also tend to think outside boxes or non-linearally, which is what fanic is -- it lives outside the proverbial box. I read it here and there. My only difficulty is it rarely deals with stories or characters that interest me. I don't write it, mainly because I'm not really that fannish about anything at the moment. I did write a bit of it when I was into Buffy. But I prefer to create my own characters and world, mainly because I clearly have control issues and don't like the idea of having to work in someone else's sandbox, I prefer to be in my own.
Quiet day. Watched Grey's (which was okay for the most part, very happy they broke up Ameila and Owen, which did not work as a couple), Crazy Ex-Girlfriend which continues to surprise me and had an interesting number by Josh Groban this week, and The Inhumans which I'm enjoying and watching even if no one else is (don't really care that much, I often like weird things). For dinner and lunch had an "Against the Grain Pizza" which is basically made of various cheeses, a little yeast, and pepproni and tomatoes...rather high in calcium and protein. Also vitamin C and A, believe it or not. It may give me gas later -- cheese often does, but so far, na da. Drinking vodka and grapefruite juice. Which is making my lips and fingers numb. Alcohol, I have to watch, mainly because it has the lovely side effect of removing all evidence of the essential tremor...so getting addicted to it...could happen. As a result, I do it sparingly. Also I hate the feeling of being drunk or losing control.
Did walk to Courtelyou and back, which is about 1 mile, with heavy bags on the way home. Lovely day. Saw a rainbow in a bunch of clouds, not full rainbow, just a small sketch of one. It was pretty and weird at the same time. And read stuff on social media. Unsurprisingly, DW correspondence list was more helpful than FB regarding political issues. FB is really not helpful at all regarding political issues -- it's all raw emotion and screaming. I find FB a bit frustrating at times. I had a weird discussion with a member of my church about whether emotions should dictate political outcomes. He asserted that they always will regardless. That they dictate everything and no one pays attention to facts. This is irritated me. People are stupid, I thought. And backed away. Remembering a bit of really good advice I received this week from a co-worker: "hate the behavior not the person." It's what she tells her kids. She's right. Too often we define people by behavior or demonize them by it, when people are complex and behavior can and does change. We have no idea why people behave the way they do, it's often determined by outside factors, biology, etc. Someone who did something crappy one day, might never do it another day...be careful not to define people solely by their actions. Actually, it's probably a good practice not to define others at all. Hard. But a good one.
Thinking about doing a top ten action movie list...assuming I can come up with them. I think I can, I love action movies. You are talking to a culture junkie here...I tend to like every genre, with few exceptions.
no subject
Date: 2017-11-05 12:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-11-05 01:03 am (UTC)And it is annoying, isn't it?
The gal that I was talking about -- didn't go to law school, but was negotiating contracts and handling copyright issues. She had a layman's knowledge of it. I see it a lot in my current field.
There used to be a site on lj entitled fandomlawyers which was rather fascinating. Copyright/Digital Copyright Law is rather dicey, because it just keeps changing with technology. I remember there'd be a new wrinkle or new case changing everything just about every year when I was doing it in the 1990s. The Napster case was the big one, caused all sorts of issues. (I was acquiring and licensing content for a major library reference database.
Do not miss it. Construction contracts are far more interesting and much more lucrative. Copyright Law was just headache inducing. Not sure it's gotten much better.)
no subject
Date: 2017-11-05 01:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-11-05 02:09 am (UTC)Wish we had templates, the resident lawyer refuses to provide templates. We use each other's recently approved 250 page construction contracts, edit them, revise them, then send them to said resident attorney who revises them again, asks a lot of questions, and we revise, then finalize. It takes forever. Written and edited a lot of contracts in my lifetime. Did create a few templates for content licensing.
I'm not a fan of other lawyers either, they tend to be assholes. Not sure why. Big egos. Also it's a field that seems to attract bullies. I liked mediation better than negotiation and litigation...
no subject
Date: 2017-11-05 02:17 pm (UTC)Yeah. We had a preformatted contract when I got here, it wasn't great, I fixed it, sent it to legal to look over, they said it was lovely, so we've been using that. I wrote various materials permissions agreements for our proprietary material, and ta-dah! Very little rewriting. (Unless someone wants to use multiple of our materials and then argh blargh complicated.)
I wish I made money. If my actual job were just the contracts, I probably would? But it isn't. Sigh.
no subject
Date: 2017-11-05 03:11 pm (UTC)I got out of the copyright and content licensing/publishing industry (where you don't make any money and the serial bullying is atrocious) and into a government procurement/construction contracts, where you do make a better salary (particularly since I'm union represented) and the serial bullying isn't quite as bad. It's more stressful. And the lawyer is from hell. We also have to deal with a crazy governor. But other than that...also, the job is more complex, includes financial analysis, facilitation, technical writing, legal analysis, negotiation, etc. I had to do a lot of leap-frogging from job to job, and some redefining to get into it though. And it can be high stress. Also requires a lot of financial analysis...which I find ironic, considering I went to law school in part, to avoid math. LOL! (Actually the courses I despised and did the least well in were "contract law", "copyright law", and "property law" -- guess what I spent my life doing? The Universe has a wicked sense of humor.)
Agree -- most of the lawyers I ran into are type A personalities, very aggressive, competitive, and anal (ie. type A). I definitely not a type A and despise competition.
no subject
Date: 2017-11-05 04:10 pm (UTC)Not just political outcomes, of course. Most decisions humans make involve some mix of logic and emotion, but when push comes to shove (or falling off the cliff) emotion typically rules, for the simple reason that purely logic-based decisions can lead to results that the person really doesn't prefer.
For additional evidence, see Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, especially this last episode. It's not just Rebecca who has issues, is it? However, it is notable that Rebecca's friends seem to be dealing with theirs in a more self-aware manner now that Rebecca has brought them out into the open as her self-pitying rage takes over her rational mind.
(A brief side note here as, once again, I continue my utter amazement at Rachel Bloom, and the sheer range of acting abilities and other production-related attributes she brings to this series, and the fearlessness. Gads...)
On another recent example of emotion over logic, I don't normally watch America's Got Talent as a regular thing, but if something looks interesting in a preview I may check it out. This season, there were a number of very amazing acts, one of which involved a large troupe of dancers who worked with either laser light systems or special costumes or both, but what they did was stunning, and like nothing I had ever seen done before. I easily would have picked them to be the series winner, and they had a lot of excellent competition.
Who won? An admittedly talented, and very cute young girl who did a ventriloquist act with two puppets. Yes, she was obviously gifted, especially for her age, but... should we be giving a million dollars to a 10 or 12-year old, when there are adults out there with even greater abilities, many of whom have labored in obscurity for years, or possibly decades?
Anywho, in the opening quote in this reply, if you change the words "always will" to "most of the time"-- can't say I disagree with him. We are still, sadly, slaves to our most elemental DNA. Not that we can't work on correcting that, you know?
no subject
Date: 2017-11-05 06:27 pm (UTC)Just look at the recent election -- people threw logic out the window and went with gut. They got Trump.
Rebecca Bunch? She was doing well last season, coming close to a major breakthrough with her psychiatrist, when all of a sudden Josh Chen proposed and she leaped at the wedding thing. She doesn't love Chen, she needs him to validate her ego, to give her life meaning, she's convinced she can't be happy without a man, specifically Joss Chen. It's how she views her own self-worth. If they married, she'd have been miserable.
Oh, if you haven't tried it yet, watch The Good Place. Takes a little while to get into...but it's brilliant.
no subject
Date: 2017-11-06 06:52 pm (UTC)it is like needing to use the Torah, you *know* that the fanfic-stories in the Talmud can't say anything like "Moshe changed his mind and brought the Jews to Ethiopia" (that would be too contrary to the "original") but if you want to suggest a gazillion stories of Moshe's journey within the desert, feel free..
this is even strong enough a habit among my people that once that talmudic story exists, and enough time passes, we talk about them as if they WERE in the Torah.... i am remembering a story where Miriam got angry at her parents for moving to separate homes (basically being divorced) because they were afraid of conceiving a boy... Miriam yelled at them that they MIGHT be able to conceive a girl instead and they had no right to deny her being able to exist.... so her parents moved back in together, Miriam is said to toss flowers on the ground as they walked into the house and (whoops) conceived Moshe.... but all of this being said, “Father, Father, your decree is harsher than that of Pharaoh. Pharaoh only decreed against the males, but you have decreed against both the males and the females [because all the Israelites withdrew from their wives, neither sons nor daughters would come into the world]" (from: BT Sotah 12b, and Meir, T., 2017)
i find it endearing (and amusing) that my people consider these long-accepted stories to be just as "real" to them, and they believe their Torah to be.
shalom! - Juju.
Meir, Tamar. "Miriam: Midrash and Aggadah." Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia. 20 March 2009. Jewish Women's Archive. (Viewed on November 6, 2017) <https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/miriam-midrash-and-aggadah>
no subject
Date: 2017-11-06 07:39 pm (UTC)I watched the first ep of the first season, mostly because Ted Danson was in it, and it struck me as okay, neither bad nor particularly interesting. Apparently it's gotten much more interesting as the season progressed, as noted by you and others.
Your recc means a lot to me, though, as we seem mostly aligned as to maybe 75 to 80% of the TV and film out there. I may pick up the S1 DVD set as soon as some spare cash comes to hand, which might be a while yet. I don't think I'll watch S2 until I see S1. (Doesn't bother me to wait, these days I only get to see a lot of TV or film on DVD, not when the original is out).