[Writer Post] Topsy Turvey Day
It’s Wednesday and I’m feeling a bit under the weather. I was going to just let this lapse (again) today because of the bleck….but, stuff’s come up today and needs to be addressed. It seems like rather too much lately, we’re focusing on the crap stuff in SF.
Writer Beware brought massive rights grab from Omni Reboot to light late last week, early this week. They tried to brush it off as a “work for hire” contract not a regular one, but haven’t been forthcoming on their “regular” contract. I would still avoid submitting here.
Today, news is hitting about an app developed by parents that can scrub profanity and certain other words out of ebooks – any ebook. The hue and cry is justified. Writer CHOOSE how they write – I choose to write “clean”. That was a decision I CONSCIOUSLY MADE years ago. I chose it. Just as other writers choose to write in other ways. ALL WAYS ARE CORRECT. NO ONE WAY is BETTER OR WORSE. If you don’t want to read profanity or violence or anatomical nookie…find other books. It’s not for anyone – or ESPECIALLY an app – to tell the reader what those words are supposed to be. So don’t try to defend this app to me. Deep down, I think I get what the designers were thinking when they developed this app – however, they went about it in all the wrong ways. This will end badly. Because now people are arguing about whether or not it’s a big deal – it’s a big deal. It’s not just leaving blue cheese off a salad or onions off a hamburger. It’s deciding an author’s voice isn’t “good enough” and taking it upon themselves to change an author’s voice, and that’s not okay.
But in the diatribes and the issues… there is GOOD and PRETTY. Apparently the gentlemen of The Flash are doing a Kickstarter for a musical movie. Joss Whedon donated. This is how they say thank you… It’s not about Marvel vs. DC or SF vs. Fantasy. It’s just generosity being met with gorgeous harmonies. It makes me happy.