Good Morning, friends and a happy Friday to one and all! Today's blog has nothing what-so-ever to do with shapeshifters or the paranormal, but a lot about writing and what's right and wrong. No, I shall not be the moral compass here, everyone has to do that for themselves, but I will present to you, two things I've read about this week which have caused me to ponder while I should have been writing.
First up, J.D. Salinger and the prospect of unpublished ms lying about in his safe. What to do with them now that he has died?
Check out this link for the full story - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100129/ap_en_ot/us_obit_salinger
Why do I find this a quandary? Well, here's the thing, Salinger had not published a thing(that we know of, unless he was using an iron clad pen name) since 1965. That had to be a choice he made, because honestly, is there any editor who would have rejected a Salinger work? But I digress, it is my assumption that he chose not to publish any more of his works, so that makes me wonder, is it then wrong to consider taking his ms, most of which were probably unedited, and put them on display to be judged by readers and scholar's alike?
What if Mr. Salinger had a love of making up dirty limericks for his personal amusement? I know I do... LOL The hubster has received many an Valentine's card with a sassy little poem in it, but I wouldn't want those made public.
Even if it wasn't dirty limericks, would anyone want their pre-edited works published? Or worse, to have someone else fully decide what you may have meant and edit your words? I'm thinking, no.
Perhaps then, if there are unpublished works in his safe, they should be kept merely for the pleasure of his family and not the public eye.
Next up, Confessions of a Book Pirate, here's a link to another article I came across the other day.
http://www.themillions.com/2010/01/confessions-of-a-book-pirate.html
This was an interesting article, but this reasoning for the theft of books leaves me cold. Just because you can not hold the book in your hands, does not mean it is not stealing. I will concede that ebooks are a fairly new technology and that we do indeed need to promote understanding, but there was one comment among the many that had me wondering if anything we e published authors do will make a difference. The comment basically stated, "downloading is copying, not stealing."
If that's true, I need to get on it and grab a couple of my favorite authors works and pull the words out, mix them up in my own ms, give it a new title and send it out to the publishers! It's sure to be a money maker!! Oh wait, that's called plagiarism which we all know is WRONG!!
Anywho, I will stop the deep thoughts now and leave you with a fun puzzle...
Who am I
-I am the beginning of eternity
-The end of every rhyme
-The beginning of every end
-And the end of space and time
Have a great weekend everyone!
4 comments:
Serena, fascinating about Salinger. If he left a will saying he didn't want them published, or a statement to that fact, then they shouldn't be, per his wishes.
If he didn't, you know what, I don't know...
Personally, I wouldn't care if my unedited mss, or WIPs were published. But, that's just me. If they're bad, they're bad.
Now, if my personal journals were published, that's a whole other matter.
~~~
I still say copying an ebook is like copying a painting and selling it as the real thing. No, you copied it illegally, more importantly without permission of the author.
Serena,
I did wonder about that--Salinger's unpublished works. I don't think I'd want my unedited stuff out there but that might just be me;-)
Someone who hadn't published since '65 might have been such a perfectionist he didn't think anything came close to what he'd already published. But if he didn't leave specific instructions in his will, it's pretty much moot.
Switching gears to piracy: People will always rationalize stealing. And there seems to be just a whole lot of people who suffer from "entitlement syndrome". For some reason they think authors all make a lot of money and they won't miss the download or two...or thousand!
Yep, Ladies, It will be interesting to see if he left a will or his wishes written down anywhere.
Savanna, oh my no, I would not want my journals out there to see for sure! But you my dear would not have to worry about your work being bad! You rock, Lady Kougar!!
Paris, interesting thought that he was a perfectionist. It could be true, I have to wonder how it would feel to have to eclipes a first work like Catcher in the Rye
I have a few unpublished manuscripts lying around from preRWA and I would be mortified if anyone came across them. I guess I should do the responsible thing and throw them away.
I'm with you on the "confessions of a book pirate" thing. That article has gotten some mileage :) It makes me sick to my stomach that so many have so little integrity anymore.
Okay so what's the answer to the riddle?
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