(no subject)

Well, got to work fine. ( snowstorm in NY and work stuff )

Watched No Ordinary Family last night - which I realized that I'm still watching solely for a small little subplot...Katie and Joshua. ( spoilers )

Also saw Merlin - which Momster got me hooked on. Rather good. The relationship between Merlin and the Dragon is part of the reason we're hooked. We also like Katie McGrath's Gwen, and Arthur and Merlin friendship.
Plus Anthony Stewart Head - who if I'd cast as Haymitch in The Hunger Games.
Although he might be a little old for the part.

The Wild West for Writers...where we all just sling words as opposed to bullets

Home again, after a slow day at work. Couldn't focus. Been having issues focusing on things lately.
Brain dead from work I think. Momster is highly recommending the Girl with the Dragoon Tattoo novels and films, because they have a kickass heroine that I will adore. (In case you haven't figured out by now? I have a weakness for kickass heroines).

After reading flist, I think I may be done with the Buffy comics. And more than likely will be done with comics altogether after issue 8 of the Spike comics. Which is of the good, since I think the industry is fading or transferring to the net. Many comic book distributors have already closed their doors, and the remaining ones aren't getting the business they once did. Plus, the better and far more innovative comics are online one's right now. The ability to publish and massively share content without a third party involved is somewhat freeing and exciting. The role of the publisher has changed in the last thirty years. They no longer really appear to edit or beta works - in many cases authors and writers get their editorial support from freelancers or outside sources, or do it themselves (if you've read Stephen King, Anne Rice or Joss Whedon's latest efforts you know whereof I speak), with their editors basically acting as marketing reps or in the case of Whedon, a freelance writer. When this happens - you go to the net to find interesting tales - to the many frustrated writers and artists who are creating things between work hours and other chores. In the past ten years I've read more entertaining and vastly more creative stories in fanfic, free online, than I have on bookshelves or in comics. The publisher and their marketing interests have to a degree begun to get in the way of the writer and the story, hacking away at it to promote what they believe the mass market will buy, looking for copycats of best-selling products or works that can be marketed in multiple ways. It's no accident that some of the best writers I've read recently are not published, except online. But it says a great deal about an industry that is too busy looking at the bottom line, to take necessary risks for art.

( Read more... )

Off to the bathroom and to make dinner now. Thinking Chicken Tereyaki.

When Professionals Writers Engage with Internet Fans Things Go Wonky

Inspired by recent rants about professional writers who have engaged in snarkfests with fans, pissing off some of them. I thought I'd give you some of the best and most noteworthy, not to mention blood pressure inducing fan and professional writer fights online. I'll let you choose the worst.

1. David Fury in a 2001 post on Bronze Beta in direct response to fans who were critical of his episode "CRUSH" in S5, Fury wrote the following classic line:
( warning sure to cause blood pressure spikage to all Spuffy fans, so you may want to skip it )

2. Anne Rice Bites Back at Reviewers on Amazon.com

Amazon.com’s policy of allowing readers to post reviews of books might be a helpful feature for consumers, but for bestselling vampire author Anne Rice, it’s been a pain in the neck. Rice was so outraged over the vitriolic response to her latest book, Blood Canticle—apparently the final installment in her bestselling Vampire Chronicle series—that she posted a 1200-word response that requested that unsatisfied readers mail her back the book for a refund. Baring her own fangs, Rice blasted the readers, saying "your stupid arrogant assumptions about me and what I am doing are slander…you have used this site as if it were a public urinal to publish falsehoods and lies." While admitting she reads Amazon.com’s reviews for other author’s works, she criticized the site’s "willingness to publish just about anything." Some posters found the book so unlike its predecessors they doubted Rice wrote it, while others carped about her needing an editor. The author countered saying she wrote "every word of it" and has "no intention of allowing any editor ever to distort, cut, or otherwise mutilate" her sentences. "I fought a great battle to achieve a status where I did not have to put up with editors making demands on me, and I will never relinquish that status," she said, adding "every word is in perfect place." Rice further asserts that the Chronicles, which began in 1976 with Interview with the Vampire, is an "unrivalled series of books." She, however, praised the positive reviews.

3. Elizabeth Moon's controversial post and fight with people on Islam. The end result was - the author was asked not to be the guest at Wiscon next year. She never submitted an apology. And deleted all the comments to her blog and disabled.
But people kept an archive. The fight is still going on.

4. Aaron Sorkin vs. Fans of the West Wing on TWOP - Sorkin was a frequent poster on TWOPY during the West Wing, posted as Benjamin. Around emmy time, he failed to acknowledge a co-worker, fans commented on it - and Sorkin did not take it at all well. He later enacted vengeance by writing it into a West Wing episode.

And of course there are the ones I remember but can't find - Whedon's numerous snarkfests with fans,
Deknight, Petrie and Fury's on BronzeBeta, notably around the airing of Seeing Red. Marti Noxon's fight with fans. One smackdown between Whedon and a fan regarding Marti's writing of a Mad Men episode on Whedonesque (I think it was MAD MEN, it might have been earlier than that). Notably - Damon Lindenoff's rant against fans of LOST, accusing them of not really being "true Lost fans" if they didn't like the finale.

Sigh late and must get to bed. I think fighting with fans of one's work is a post-modernist thing.
We couldn't do it in the dark ages before the internet and twitter and facebook and fan boards.
Is it a good thing - to be able to converse and interact with the readers and watchers of your work?
I don't know. I think it has it's peaks and valleys. While it's great when people love you, there's always that one person who comes along and kicks you where it hurts and for some reason I've never understood that's the person I remember, not all the raves, the one who sticks in the head.

Writers are a wrecked lot. I think. Human and vulnerable. We're also so critical. Everyone of the writers listed above has written critical reviews and ripped things they loved or disliked apart critically. Whedon certainly has. As has Fury, and Sorkin and notably Lindenof on the Harry Potter film.