I swear I have not absconded with the funds, run off with the meter man, or been eaten by a bear. I haven’t even left the building. I’ve just been, you know, busy with the new thing in my life. I’ll be back soon, I promise.
But in the meantime, here’s something that’s been amusing me: screenwriter Josh Olson’s rant about why he will not read your fucking script. Read it — don’t skip the comments! — and then check out Scalzi’s take on the matter.
I have always marveled at people who think it’s okay to interrupt an actor or a rock star in the middle of their dinner and ask for — or insist — on an autograph or photo. And yet I’ve talked to plenty of folks who think they are entitled to that kind of access whenever/wherever, because that person is, you know, famous! They’re asking for it! The Olson rant addresses a similar issue, I think: there’s a belief in our culture that beginners are entitled to access to experts whenever/wherever.
I know where I stand. I’m friends with a photographer and web dev, for example (*waves at both*) and I still hesitate to ask for professional services as a favor. I do ask, because we are actual friends, but I never assume that even my friends owe me this kind of help.
And I’m also a believer in paying forward to pay back. Many people helped me: however (and it’s a big one), I had some kind of professional or personal relationship with nearly every single one of those people before I asked for help, or before they offered it. I had demonstrated good social skills at conventions or parties, spoken intelligently about their work, not been pushy, respected their privacy and was always courteous to their special people. And I’ve always been clear when I’ve asked for favors that I don’t expect a yes, and that a no will not make me grumpy; that my actual relationship with them is more important to me than the specific help I’m asking for.
If that’s ever not true — if there’s something career-life-or-death about the favor — I’ll be clear about that too. But I still won’t feel entitled to a yes.
Hmm. Let’s recap here. Nicola’s helped me reverse my case of rectal-cranial blockage on some key life issues via Jo, you’ve both provided massively valuable Humans at Work documents to me free of charge, and together you’re providing massively helpful writing advice for me free of charge via Sterling Editing. I don’t think you’ve come over and cleaned my tool shed (though hell, at this point maybe you have), but you’ve done just about everything else for me. I didn’t expect this much, I’m freakin’ grateful, and I really can’t ask for more.
So no, I won’t be sending you my manuscript :).
I don’t think we’ve been to your tool shed yet. But it’s our pleasure to be of whatever help we have.
And you can send me your manuscript now that there’s Sterling Editing. As long as you send money too 😉
This fascinates me. Briefly, I was under just that illusion—because, hell, why else did they become famous than to be noticed and bothered?
But on a deeper, more serious level, I remember when I was 11 or 12 I’d drawn a comic strip and I wanted to market it. I did not know thing one about how to do that, but my grandmother, in one of the only instances of her trying to do me a righteous one, took some samples of it and sent it to the editor of the comics section of our local paper—and he wanted to see me.
Grandma went with me on the bus downtown. I was all dressed up in my little double-breasted suit (one of those with the fake crest on the left pocket) and got ushered into his office. He handled it badly, stared for a moment, and said “You’re Mark Tiedemann?” When I proudly admitted yes, I was, he shut the interview down, handed back the panels, and saw that I got a tour of the building. He wasn’t about gonna deal with a kid.
I took it from that point on that anything I did had to be done from a place of utter secrecy—pseudonyms, etc—because They will find out who I AM and then they won’t even Look at my work.
Which morphed into a belief that the only way I was ever gonna be taken seriously was by knowing Someone. I had to have an in through someone already in. Which is where the practice of getting someone like Olson to look at your work comes from.
Because, you know, being told that you’re just not good enough yet doesn’t cut it, because at the time you’re doing the best you know how and it doesn’t seem to be all that different…yadda yadda.
But at some point you are no longer 14, so it’s incumbent on you to get over all that b.s.
Just sayin’, though, where some illusions come from.
Those who spend their time envisioning enormous paychecks, limos, red carpets and awards are apt to go around thrusting their manuscripts, contact info, cell numbers at anyone successful because they are looking for a way in to the money, limos, red carpet, etc. One reason why is the self-help gurus tout this behavior rather than encouraging the poor soul to go home, return to his/her desk and write, write, write.
For the truth is you create that which is stellar you can leave it in the middle of a deserted road and someone will find it and take it onto the next step.
I have taught writing workshops and inevitably before I even open my mouth with the first lesson, someone will shoot up a hand and ask, ‘How do I get published?’
Perhaps Mr. Olson is a prick by nature, who knows, but writers and I mean those who labor at their craft day in and day out (you know who you are!) would not give a flying f**k what Mr. Olson thinks about their work.
Jan writes:—“Perhaps Mr. Olson is a prick by nature, who knows, but writers and I mean those who labor at their craft day in and day out (you know who you are!) would not give a flying f**k what Mr. Olson thinks about their work.”
I think that was a large part of Olson’s point, that “real writers” (those of us who know who we are) wouldn’t impose like that and those who aren’t “real writers” don’t understand why they shouldn’t.