“I am just Ms. Yeo Wool’s shadow. I can love her, but the choice is not mine. “
Why I heart my clients.
Just recently, one walked away from major Hollywood money because in the film option deal, we asked for several things but this one thing had to be true: the love interest had to be a non-white person as it was in the book.
The studio would not agree. We walked.
—Agent Kristin Nelson in a recent Facebook post
This is pretty much the most disgusting statistic I have ever seen in my entire life.
(Source: iamselfmade2)
And when I began to write…I wrote exactly the kinds of stories I was reading. All my characters were white and blue-eyed. They played in the snow. They ate apples. And they talked a lot about the weather, how lovely it was that the sun had come out. Now, this despite the fact that I lived in Nigeria. I had never been outside Nigeria. We didn’t have snow. We ate mangoes. And we never talked about the weather, because there was no need to….
What this demonstrates, I think, is how impressionable and vulnerable we are in the face of a story, particularly as children. Because all I had read were books in which characters were foreign, I had become convinced that books, by their very nature, had to have foreigners in them, and had to be about things with which I could not personally identify.
”“The Danger of a Single Story” by Chimamanda Adichie. If you haven’t heard this TEDTalk already, take a break and do so now. (via richincolor)
When I first started writing, I went through this, too. It took me several years—and the ‘09 Racefail—to realize what was going on.
★ Who is your favourite villain?
Whoa.
[Additional context: It is unclear if Cho is referring to the character or Montalban. Montalban was a Mexican American actor of Spanish descent who was often cast to play characters of color by Hollywood; as Charlie Jane Anders points out, when he was working in Hollywood he felt he experienced racism and as a result founded an organization to support Latino actors. The character of Khan was South Asian and a character of color.]
(Source: divorcedreality)
The world is so big, so complicated, so replete with marvels and surprises that it takes years for most people to begin to notice that it is, also, irretrievably broken. We call this period of research “childhood.”
There follows a program of renewed inquiry, often involuntary, into the nature and effects of mortality, entropy, heartbreak, violence, failure, cowardice, duplicity, cruelty, and grief; the researcher learns their histories, and their bitter lessons, by heart. Along the way, he or she discovers that the world has been broken for as long as anyone can remember, and struggles to reconcile this fact with the ache of cosmic nostalgia that arises, from time to time, in the researcher’s heart: an intimation of vanished glory, of lost wholeness, a memory of the world unbroken. We call the moment at which this ache first arises “adolescence.” The feeling haunts people all their lives.
” Michael Chabon, reminding me why I love him (and why I write YA)(Source: robinwasserman)
hi guys! this is a comic i made for a final in my comics in literature class. we had to do a research paper on a topic we’d discussed in class and then accompany it with a comic with a relevant subject. my paper was about hyper-sexualization of women in comic books, but i decided to broaden it out here as well as personalize it and make myself the subject and discuss something i’ve been subjected to in the convention circuit and on the internet as well as thousands of other women, as well as give a cue to thought about how the comic book industry as well as the video game industry and even just media in general (all of which are male dominated) push such ridiculous pressures onto girls and women.
also, it feels kind of silly to have to add this since i hope it’s obvious, but i am very aware that there are men that don’t subscribe to this attitude, and am incredibly grateful that these issues are brought to light to people other than the ones that are subjected to it.
anyway haha i have literally been staring at this for 9 hours i don’t even know which direction is up anymore. thanks for reading!!!
This is so good!
Holly Black's Tumblr: On writers getting paid to write
Hey Cassie, I love your books so much and I was looking forward to the Bane Chronicles. I was under the impression when you first posted about them that they would be a series of free e-books, however when I looked at them on Amazon today they were $2.99. I can’t afford…
This post of Cassie’s makes me think of this comment on the idea of writing for free:
http://pocochina.tumblr.com/post/44918424567/but-its-then-incumbent-upon-all-of-us-to-recognize
‘Writing is, after all, one of the few skills girls are encouraged to develop… It is, at the moment, a profession exactly respected enough to acknowledge a lot of women as professionals. And on some level I think that’s part of the failure to properly contextualize that it is WORK and people need to be PAID, not some frivolous habit that anyone could do, if they weren’t so busy with their SERIOUS REAL CONCERNS, GOD, JUST SHUT UP, WOMAN!’
I’m not saying that dudes don’t get asked to write for free too. Obviously they do, the arts are notoriously treated as not a real job: the journalist asked to write for free in the above link was a guy, and Cassie links to John Scalzi’s post on the subject of writing for free in her post.
I think it is interesting that they *are* both guys, and they both got a lot of good press for saying: my work is worth something. Because when a woman says that, people argue with her.
The majority of writers are women—but the majority of the best-paid writers are men. In Forbes’s most recent list of the highest paid authors, nine out of fifteen names are men. That’s not equality—that’s a long way off. People assume men write better stories and are more deserving of being paid for them.
I get many requests saying ‘I would like a free story about this.’ And it’s flattering to be asked, it really is. Every writer wants people to want more of their writing. But I do not have unlimited time, and I do have to pay the electric bill.
I once wrote a free short story to thank people for reading my second book and asked for people not to tell me if they hadn’t read my second book. ;) Because I dared to ask something for myself, I know of at least one person who stopped reading my books entirely. The attitude was not just ‘give me free stuff’ - that’s taken for granted - but ‘don’t act like you’re entitled to anything, not even feelings about your work.’
I remember an email exchange with one girl looking for more free stories by moi who responded to my suggestion she read my books with ’Rest assured, I have picked up copies of them several times, and looked speculatively at them, then looked at the Terry Pratchett novel in my other hand…’
(I’m in no way suggesting I am better than Terry Pratchett. I LOVE TERRY PRATCHETT.)
I’ve been told I should just be grateful for the attention of readers—that if I really loved writing I’d do it for free—and I have seen the same thing said to many other lady writers I admire. Lynn Flewelling’s one I remember especially, because I SUPER LOVE Lynn Flewelling, who wrote one of the very few gay-protagonist fantasy serieses around. (Luck in the Shadows. You’re welcome, internet. ;))
People react badly to women acting like their work is worth something… and they also react badly to the world acting like women’s work is worth something.
I’ve seen one successful lady novelist described as ‘more a businesswoman than an author’—I have *never* heard someone talk about James Patterson that way, and he’s the most business-focused writer I know of.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/magazine/24patterson-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
I believe nobody is obliged to buy anything I write: I believe nobody owes me a living.
But that doesn’t mean that I believe people have an absolute right to whatever of my work they decide they want, with no benefit to me.
It’s sad sometimes, because I like writing free things (I freely admit, as both presents and promotion) and I don’t want to believe people will just think that I *should* write them, and all I write should be free: that because I did something for free once, that’s all my work is worth for all of time. ;)
It’s a complicated issue, because I really am grateful that people read what I write, and I really do want people who can’t afford books to have access to books. I love libraries, and discovered some of my favourite writers through them as a kid.
It’s also tricky because I’m also really pleased and honoured to be a part of the Bane Chronicles, and I know a lot of people did buy mine and Cassie’s first story. (So many people! I LOVE YOU ALL.)
It’s tricky because writers don’t set price points. (If I could, I would totally like to give away or discount Unspoken for a little bit before Untold comes out… because I think it would be great promotion, because I think people would buy Untold after.) We don’t get to—publishers do. Which is fair enough, as publishers are paying for covers and distribution and so on: they have a lot more people to pay than just us. But writers get the flak for price points as well as covers, because, well, c’est la vie. It’s your name on the cover.
It’s tricky for all those, and many more, reasons.
But… yes. I can’t—and other women can’t—write all the things for free, and it is uncomfortable to see women’s work treated so often as being worth nothing.
Gon’s gettin’ real tired of your shit, guys
I love this man’s expressions. I half expect him to go beat his head against the wall every time he’s on screen.
8 Reasons Authors Don’t Complete Their Manuscripts
by B. McKenzie
WriteWorld Note: This article is geared toward writing superhero comics, short stories, and novels.
Reasons:
- The author is working on too many projects to finish one.
- The author is unwilling and/or unable to set time aside for writing.
- The author gives up on the manuscript and starts another.
- The writer constantly rewrites chapters before the first draft is complete.
- The author sends it out for beta-reviews too early and gets discouraged.
- The author loses track of where the story is going and allows that to discourage him/her.
- The author writes out of sequence and gets horribly discouraged when the story fragments turn into an incoherent wreck.
- There are too few goals, obstacles, character growth and/or consequences to propel the story past writer’s block.
Stop right now and read this.
