The world of writers-- how is it in your country?

[Kyriakos]

Cause here it is...well... not good. To be polite

By which i mostly mean that usually the most conceited people are writers (at least of fiction), and overall there is a depressing vanity in their actions and thoughts.

Now, of course, i happen to also be typically a member of this community. I am not without parts of such vices, although i do not aim to present myself as one to be read due to some certainty that my work may be of significance to a reader. Nevertheless i am also stuck between the world of writing and the world of being a writer in social situations, and i hate the latter.

*

I want to ask if, in your experience, writers are usually equally vain/conceited/parasitic etc in your own countries/societies. Granted that some are way more than others, but this profession (so to speak) inherently attracts many people prone to self-promotion and rather annoying ideosyncracy.

Not that only writers depict such traits (that would have been great), but probably they are even more common in this group of people (?).

Lastly, to end in a somewhat different note, some few writers -all in my age group, mind- i know here are not like that, and i tend to have some relations with those, given it is easier

 

[Leoreth]

Is the Quixote picture a reference to yourself? Because it's surprisingly apt.

 

[Kyriakos]

^It was a bait to fish for your opening comment, Hidalgo Leoreth

 

[Leoreth]

Glad to be of service

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Same here. I think it is the same with any artistic discipline. Can speak about tbe world of painting personally. Sometimes i feel like the guy wearing the beret here:


Link to video.

 

[Synobun]

I usually avoid writing circles primarily because most of the writers I meet act as though the characters, worlds, and stories they concoct are real. It creeps me out to listen to someone tell me about what John did last week and, upon asking who John is, they go, "Oh, a character in my story, he's so silly."

Nah. No way.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Are you referring to professional writers specifically, or are you including aspiring professionals and/or hobbyists?

I've met a fair number of professional science fiction and fantasy authors over the years. Most were polite, friendly people. A couple of them were even more friendly than one would ever expect (an invitation to accompany them to the Calgary Zoo the day after the convention; 8 of us took them up on that invitation and had a wonderful time).

Of course the main reason they accepted the invitation to the conventions was to promote their writing and hopefully acquire new readers, but some were also genuine fans of others' work as well and were there because they plain enjoy science fiction conventions. And the ones I used to attend (NonCon and Con-Version) always had the main focus on writing. The main guests were always professional writers - never actors. Other guests included writers, editors, artists, publishers, and local/regional educators - university professors, people from museums and the planetarium, and one year we had Dr. Phil Currie, who runs the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology here - a world-class museum/research facility.

So... are any of these people overly conceited, vain, nose-in-the-air types?

Yep. A few of the ones I met were promptly moved to my "Do not ever buy this person's stuff ever again because I refuse to support an author who is rude/disrespectful to his/her fans." Three of those people are Orson Scott Card, John Varley, and Lois McMaster Bujold. And while David Gerrold was polite to me, I heard that he was a bit rude to other people.

Robert Silverberg is content for someone to run his Facebook page for him and promote his books and short stories, but he prefers to do his online interactions with his fans on his Yahoo! group. I joined that group some time ago, and it's pretty nice to be able to ask a question or make a comment and get a reply from him. He just had his 81st birthday last week, and is still attending conventions. I first met him back in the '80s, and he's one of the very few people who were GoHs at Con-Version not once, but twice.


TrekBBS is a Star Trek forum where quite a few of the professional Star Trek authors and scriptwriters hang out. For the most part they're polite and supportive to each other. I wish I could say that they're polite to the other people... but two of them made it on to my "Do not ever buy anything from this person ever again" list thisfast. I really don't appreciate a pro author sticking his nose in the air and snottily telling me that if I don't get paid to write, that means my opinions about Star Trek are less valid than his opinions. I readily accept that his opinions on the publishing industry are more valid than mine, since he works in that industry and I don't. But there's no way that he gets to tell me that only professional authors' opinions count when it's Star Trek in general that's being discussed.

On the flip side, however, are the ones who are genuinely interested in their fans' opinions, not only of the novels, but of other things. We do have to be careful never to post fanfic or story ideas in the TrekLit forums; one person didn't heed that, and as a result one of the pro authors announced that he'd just had to cancel one of his novels. He'd seen the person's post and it was too close to what he was currently working on. To protect himself against any possibility of being sued, he had to stop writing that book. A couple of the pros post in other areas besides TrekLit, so a few times I've put my post in spoilers or with a warning for Greg Cox and Christopher Bennett to not read the post because it contains story/fanfic ideas. I don't worry about the others, because they don't participate in the non-Lit forums. And honestly, if David Mack has to cancel a book because he accidentally read one of my posts outside of the Lit forum, too bad. He's one of the ones banned from my bookshelf.


Now when thinking of specific Canadian authors... Margaret Atwood comes to mind. She's an amazing author, both in her fiction nonfiction, and it's no exaggeration that some people think of her as one of Canada's living national treasures. But she's got this hangup about anyone referring to her science fiction novels as what they are. There is no way that books such as The Handmaid's Tale or Oryx and Crake or her other more recent ones could be anything but science fiction. But because they don't have bug-eyed monsters, spaceships, and ray guns, she doesn't think they're science fiction.

Well, she's got a valid point that if people go shopping for a Margaret Atwood book they're either going to look in general fiction or Canadiana. They're not going to look in the science fiction section. But if she would allow her SF books to be sold there as well as in the other sections, she would pick up new readers.

 

[downtown]

There are more places than ever to buy work in the United States. But a proliferation of writers has also driven prices down. If you are not a staff writer somewhere or are not blessed with a very good agent, you need to be as good at selling yourself as you are at writing.

Because of this, and because of the kinds of people who tend to become writers anyway, I've found many of my compatriots are extraordinarily insecure, and squabble over stupid stuff all the time. I'm glad that I married somebody who doesn't really care about the stuff I write about for a living, so I can come home at the end of the day and leave some of that HS Drama type stuff behind.

I love my job. I don't love a lot of other sportswriters, to be honest.

 

[Atticus]

I'd imagine in small languages the writers are more motivated by vanity. Mostly because they have no hopes of making much money.

One of my dislikes with Finnish literature is that I often get the feeling that the reason for writing the book was to write a book.

 

[Kyriakos]

I'd imagine in small languages the writers are more motivated by vanity. Mostly because they have no hopes of making much money.

One of my dislikes with Finnish literature is that I often get the feeling that the reason for writing the book was to write a book.

Well, writing a book doesn't have to be non-vain if you do it with the hope to get money (although it is unrealistic in most countries and most cases, yes...).

Depends also on what you identify as vain. Eg i want my book(s) to be available for as long as there are people wanting to read them. It seems logical. Now what i think of my work is a wholly different issue, and i never present that in the actual work

As Borges once said: "Being interested in future generation's readers liking your work is almost worth as much as being interested in the concurrent reader's liking it. And the latter is virtually entirely insignificant"

In the end, though, if the person just wants to think and not present anything to others, he/she better not choose to have books out. A book is supposed to be in some manner possible to be of use to readers...

(@Valka: here published writers often are far more obnoxious than non-published ones...)

 

[dusters]

Here in Latvia writers usually are rather rich people who have decided to publish a book.

By rather rich i mean that publishing is really expensive and non-profitable, readers can't afford to buy books for bookshop prices (therefore public libraries are so crowded, you have to wait like a half year to get a just-published book).

The Writers' Union which is funded by state tries to help new authors by publishing their books, but since the funding is so little, they can afford to publish only 2-3 new works per year from debut authors.

On the other hand, in 19th/ early 20th century Latvia has had many decent writers, Rainis being the most famous one. So the foundation is there, many latvians like to read, many has tried to write some kind of poetry during their youth, but the entry price into the field is high.

Being talented isn't enough, you need to be near genius at writing or you need to be rich to get your stuff published. A new book here costs about 11 euros, you can eat for five days with that money here.

 

[Zkribbler]

...A few of the ones I met were promptly moved to my "Do not ever buy this person's stuff ever again because I refuse to support an author who is rude/disrespectful to his/her fans." Three of those people are Orson Scott Card...

Strange, I had a somewhat different encounter with him. Decades ago, a writing buddy of mine and I decided we wanted to take a crack at turning one of Card's short stories into a movie. Somehow my friend had gotten what he believed was Card's home number. He called but it turned out to be the house of Card's parents. A sibling answered, and then went and got Card's home number in North Caroline. My friend called and got Card on the line, asking him for a film option on the short story. Cards wanted money for it, we didn't have any. Basically my friends was trying to sweet-talk him into giving him a free, one-year option. Card wasn't rude or anything; he was just too savvy to give away something like that for free. So that was that.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Strange, I had a somewhat different encounter with him. Decades ago, a writing buddy of mine and I decided we wanted to take a crack at turning one of Card's short stories into a movie. Somehow my friend had gotten what he believed was Card's home number. He called but it turned out to be the house of Card's parents. A sibling answered, and then went and got Card's home number in North Caroline. My friend called and got Card on the line, asking him for a film option on the short story. Cards wanted money for it, we didn't have any. Basically my friends was trying to sweet-talk him into giving him a free, one-year option. Card wasn't rude or anything; he was just too savvy to give away something like that for free. So that was that.

That would have been extraordinarily polite from any author, to not get rude at the gall of someone who wanted his stories for free. That's not how it works.

Robert Silverberg's novel Lord Valentine's Castle has had numerous offers from movie producers during the last 30+ years. It would make one hell of a terrific movie/miniseries (I'd go with a miniseries myself, as the story is long and the world of Majipoor deserves more than just two hours to show it off). But Silverberg has always refused, because he wants much more creative control than the producers are willing to let him have. And considering how easily this story could be corrupted into something stupid (ie. making a joke out of some of the alien characters and turning the romance between Valentine and Carabella into something smutty, which is what some producers would feel modern audiences would find "relateable"), I don't blame him. If this book is ever adapted to movie/TV form, it's got to be done respectfully.