Quote:
Originally Posted by WritePR
Many times an author's work means so much to their heirs that they want to keep control of it. Sometimes not, and then it goes into the public domain.
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I agree with many of your previous points, but not with your support of the extension of the Copyright Act. It seems to me that the extension of copyright in the U.S. has more to do with corporations and intellectual property than honoring the rights of artists' descendants.
I agree strenuously (oof!) with your comments about writing not being easy and would add this:
Ideally, writing should never be so carefree that a person can spew drafts bleary-eyed without bothering to go over the style and content to make them as perfect as possible, all of which can take an immense amount of time. There's a reason so many more great poets have had day jobs than great novelists, and part of it is that poets are able to perfect shorter work over long stretches of time, sometimes reworking the same set of poems for a decade or more.
But even in that case, we're leaving something out: The amount of time it takes to
develop the mastery shown in a poem or work of fiction. Sometimes it isn't just that one work which takes time. It's also a matter of the time taken in previous work to reach the point of development at which the most important work is written. Some writers haven't the time or capacity to reach that point without being paid as they go along. (Late Beckett without early Beckett, for example.)
Many of us don't require that kind of refinement from the books we read, and certain markets and writers aren't known for mandating it. But when people insist that careful writing is always unnecessary or overworked, that's anti-intellectual snobbery. It's also a completely impractical assumption to make about writing which might not (or might!) appeal to one's own tastes.
I've seen people complain about a short work of fiction costing as much as a long one, but effort can't be judged solely on length. I have no problem with Kindle Singles that are a bit short. I do, however, dislike paying for work that is so shoddily written it probably took less time to write or prepare than for the reader to unpack the malapropisms and dangling modifiers.
One example (from someone's rejected manuscript, which later became a pricey and self-published novel): "He didn't need a microscope to see the pattern on his shirt because he had microscopic eyes."
(And by the way: The pattern was on another character's shirt!)