Tuesday, March 07, 2006

John Podhoretz Loses A Bet?

And has to pimp for Glenn? Two words, me bucko, Gamblers Anonymous.

PS: How long before the Amazon-Ranking-Watch begins?

March 7, 2006 -- "IT'S only March, but I can guarantee you there won't be a more exciting or inspiring book published this year than "An Army of Davids." Glenn Reynolds, its author, is best known for the Web log called Instapundit, but he is also a musician, the creator of a record label, a law professor, an expert on space (he drafted a position paper on the matter for Al Gore's 1988 campaign) and an unpublished novelist.
"An Army of Davids" is a book about how technology has freed people like Reynolds to pursue their interests in ways that would have been unthinkable 30 years ago. For example, Reynolds can record, mix and complete an album in his basement with a $1,500 computer and software written in Poland - a process once restricted to those with access to multimillion-dollar studios.

"People used to be ignorant," Reynolds writes. "It was hard to learn things. You had to go to libraries, look things up, perhaps sit and wait until a book was fetched from storage, or recalled from another user, or borrowed from a different library . . . Things are different today. I'm writing this in a bar right now, and I have most of human knowledge at my fingertips."

That human knowledge was placed on the Internet by millions of people, mostly doing so because they chose to, for no recompense other than to stimulate others to provide similar information in fields that obsessed them."
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Wow. People going through all of that trouble just to spread knowledge. Without pay. Millions of them. Sort of makes that certain type of person who proclaims there should be recompense for so-so blogging, sort of foolish. You know, the ones who think that dashing off a few words about their obscure, unexciting little world, means that they're authors and entitled to big bucks. Well here's a clue from someone who stepped in shit a few years back and for a while made more money than God because a West Coast producer got a few chuckles after reading a couple of mediocre screenplays (and free hint #1: ALWAYS be certain that your agent makes it known that you can do screen writing too, even if you can't): You cannot blog and write at the same time. Everyone from old Willy S. down to Glenn Reynolds has x-amount of words in them on a daily basis. If you're sweating it out over a clunky manuscript you don't take a break by going online to fuss with your daily adventures as Captain Dull.

George R.R. Martin is one of my favorite Fantasy/Science Fiction writers. Successful as all hells. Screenplays, short stories, novels, novellas, you name it and George has been good at it. He's apologized many times because it took a week to answer an email because he was busy writing. I'd reply that no apology was necessary because I knew just how he felt, ONCE knew how he felt, when working at a chosen profession and could not be interrupted for fear of losing track, or even worse, create page after page of absolute shit because of a distraction.

The good writers write. Even the successful writers write. Now, I'm sure that Glenn's effort will prove fruitful, for he has a built-in readership, but I haven't a clue as to what his skills are because I've never seen him write. Blog/Diary notes are not writing. Blog/Diary notes are "A Dark and stormy night..." and anyone who has sweated through the 4th revision of a long piece of work laughs at the thought that open letters to total strangers could ever be considered writing.

And I know so little about Glenn...is he married, how hot and heavy are the distractions, etc...that it is impossible to predict how his work will be received by those who are not fans. Single guys can lock themselves in a room and get the most from their talent. Married guys (and gals, don't be all fussy here, I was being generic for the sake of brevity and now you've ruined it) with understanding spouses can also get the most from their talent, but run the risk of becoming diluted without even knowing it.

Anyway, I got off on a tangent and part of that was because I was interrupted half a dozen times. It happens. People who wouldn't think of stopping by your place of business and taking your time, think nothing of walking in and putting a screeching halt to one of the most difficult tasks a person can endeavor to be good at. But back to the original premise we go.

99.999% of everyone who blogs does so to share. Not charge. There is no bill coming due after reading this, but yes, I do agree that I SHOULD be paying you to wade through this tomfoolery but tough shit. The big blogs draw advertising revenues and that's terrific. It teaches one how to write for an audience rather than writing for yourself, and that's something the egotists can't understand all by their lonesome. An agent, a publisher, a producer, or even an advertiser, will suggest ways of becoming more attractive to the people paying the bills. The readers.

Writing for yourself is mental masturbation. Writing for others is contribution. Hats off to all of you who do it for free and understand this. Go spread the word some more. Knowledge is what seperates us from the apes. Or the Daily Kos.

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