Online piracy

Putting your work online risks piracy, just as has happened with the music industry. Only it doesn’t seem to be doing the music industry much harm. Look at Apple’s iTunes which, after a bit of a painful transition is now making money as if it had its own mint. And as one writer so rightly said, obscurity is a much worse fate than piracy. Apparently Brazilian author Paulo Coelho thinks so too, because, since he’s been actively pirating his own books his sales have increased. I wonder how many he pirates? I wonder if it's true?

A spokesman for the London based Society of Authors said that “book piracy on the internet will ultimately drive authors to stop writing unless radical methods are devised to compensate them for lost sales.”
I think we should wait and see what the technology brings – what do you think?

First lines I have in my head

“He broke a rose.”

No idea what it means: it came to me in a dream so it’s probably rubbish.

“Because the Governor hath said thou hast so great a heart.”

Also words from a dream. Go figure.

First line I did write

“The most dreadful thing you can do is not live up to someone’s expectations of you.” The Disputed Barricade.

First line I'm glad I didn't

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents ... Paul Clifford. Edward Bulwer-Lytton.

First lines I'd like to have written

According to Donald Maass, “The best first lines make us lean forward, wondering, ‘What the heck does that mean?’ ... The one thing all good first lines have in common is the intrigue factor.”

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness .....

He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad. Scaramouche.

And inevitably ... “Call me Ishmael.”

Stalin

Now there’s a name to make any writer sit up and look over their shoulder. He’s supposed to have coined the unforgettable description that writers are “engineers of the human souls.” Actually it was a minor Soviet novelist in a toast to a writer’s gathering in 1932. No one knows what happened to the man, but he probably vanished into the Gulag ......

John Fowles on writing

Narcissism or pygmalionism is the essential vice the writer must have. Characters (or situations) are like children or lovers: they need constant tending to, caressing, listening to, watching, admiring. All these occupations become tiring for the active participant --- the writer--- and only something akin to love can provide the energy. I’ve heard people say, “I want to write a book.” But wanting to write a book, however ardently, isn’t enough. Even to say, “I want to be possessed by my creations,” isn’t enough, all natural or born writers are possessed, and in the old magical sense, by their imaginations, long before they even begin to think of writing.