Harlan Ellison - Pay The Writer!

[m1thr0s]

Man...I think I'm gonna make this thing my personal Yantra till it finally sinks in...

YouTube - Harlan Ellison -- Pay the Writer

m1thr0s

[m1thr0s]

Curious, although I like his attitude, the more I watch this thing the more I feel like he's really just pissing up a rope here.

In another interview, Harlan states that the only reason to be a writer is "posterity". I don't happen to think that this is true, but let's say it is for a moment. In that event, his whole *I don't take a piss without getting paid* routine is a contradiction in terms. If posterity is what really counts, that's a networking agenda and money has very little to do with it. On the flip-side, if you're only really in it for the money then you need to pull your head out of your ass and do what the big money-makers do....in most cases, plagiarize the crap out of popular stories repackaged to meet the wants and needs of modern day culture. Simple as that...from ET to Star Trek to Harry Potter et al...formula writing is a formula that happens to work in terms of money.

So there's a contradiction going on here I'm not comfortable with. Some of what he is saying is true but it isn't any kind of universal solvent or anything...as a matter of fact I think it may actually be kind of an ass-backwards philosophy, all things considered...

m1thr0s

[MythMath]

His 'passions' were flaring by the time he made that
piss-for-pay statement (who pays him to piss, anyway?)...

Yeah, the internet has made it pretty cheap and easy
to distribute your work if that's your primary goal...

And that fact has made getting paid pretty unlikely...

[m1thr0s]

aside from the craft side of writing, we have yet to look at the special problems involved with original ideas themselves...and he's really not addressing this either. He's actually more or less complaining about problems within the industry of writing and not much else.

People breaking new ground have a whole other can of worms to contend with since there typically is no market there to begin with...or else that market only exists as a ground-swell that needs to be activated and nurtured along before it actually takes root.

So anyone working along these lines is in the worst possible position you can be in financially. It may not always be completely hopeless but it very often is...a lot depends on finding some sort of middle-ground, which in itself may detract from the integrity of the reality-creation process. You can't always have it both ways, unfortunately.

m1thr0s

[deviadah]

I don't think money and art should be mixed... I understand that the artist need money to live, and this is the eternal catch 22 for a lot of artists. In the end it is all how the work is presented/sold...

Swedenborg published books copyright free because he felt the knowledge should be available to all. Radiohead lets you download their new album free (or you can pay what you like) and I actually think they make a lot of money that way. One reason is real fans do pay something, and an artist doesn't receive a big % of a CD when bought in the store anyway (the store itself actually takes up to 80 % just for selling it).

I like Ellison's anger and fire in the clip, and I agree that he should be paid in the situation he found himself in. I wouldn't take a piss either without getting paid if it meant that Big Corp would make money from my work. On the other hand I piss for free if I distribute my work of my own free will on the Internet.

But I have a problem when art and money is mixed. If I create a painting in order to sell it I would somehow feel dirty. How can I create true art if the fire to create it is money. That is not what art should be fueled by.

On the other hand if I feel inspired by something and I paint a painting, and then some guy likes it at says to me that he want's to buy it - well then I might consider it.

Money should always be a side-effect of art, not an instigator! Because if it is the latter one is better off getting a job in a law firm or some other similar institution!

:cool:

AF is free, and AF is a work of Art... alchemy is after all the Sacred Art, and magick too is an art form! But people can donate... and that's not a problem at all! You give a little because you enjoy it, or because you want to support the work! But if AF was pay before you receive then I think it would become no better than Scientology... if you get the picture!

[fr.novumorganum]

very true. if one writes for the sake of all the artistic reasons then the product is its own reward...i just want to throw moby dick at Harlan everytime I watch that....

the only thing i would disagree with what you say about the formulaic...yes, for the multi-book million dollar contracts and movie deals that is true,

but the new can be rewarded in the markeplace---history is littered with the drunken bodies of writers who did do something new and were able to make a comfortable living (or at least enough for beer the true ink!) a good writer often finds that his vision and voice resonate with the time, as if the reader's were waiting for someone to textualize the phenomenological, strucure of feeling of the current moment...kerouac, hunter, william dean howells, don dellilo, philip roth...of course there are far more underrepresented....Melville is the great figure of this...

very often its the distribution systems and insitutions that stand in the way...much of the culture industry as it stands today is designed to stifle creativity and difference...this goes back to our bookstore thread...the mega-chain buyers have king like powers over the publishing industry, and they don't want the great american novel they want sally potter and the sack full of cash...

and this is a problem..the corporate buyer has more power than the critic; the accountant more power than the editor. what the new needs most are defenders and trupeters, those who recognize its value and are willing to promote it simply for its cultural capital...but that model is marginalized right now.

[m1thr0s]

I do think it all sorts itself out eventually...one just has to keep tracking the solution until it finally begins to manifest. Much of my work is built upon the work of others anyway so it seems a little ludicrous to try to slap a patent on it...but if I were more in a position to run actual classes on a regular basis I would probably charge something for this...I actually think it helps people to take the work seriously when you do this...

I keep returning to the standard of Ashtanga Yoga as it gradually takes root here in the states for instance...it's just too much work for teachers not to be compensated for their efforts...it's a pretty major commitment etc...

So yeah...not hopeless...just a little convoluted I'd say.

m1thr0s

[fr.novumorganum]

Naropa (http://www.naropa.edu/about/history.cfm) always offers us hope, too.