Friday, October 1, 2010

A Private Little War

Currently reading - Wolfsbane and Mistletoe, edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni P. L. Kelner

Why does there have to be a battle between self-publishing and traditional publishing?  I see flame wars on several different sites.  Editors are out to get the writers.  Self-pub'd writers don't bother to use spell-check.  No advances being given by certain houses and lower percentages on sales.  Stack of books paid for with the money saved for the kids' college tuition moldering in the garage.

Does any of this matter?

Not really.  Not in the long run.  With all due respect to Bob Dylan, times they are a'changing, folks.  No one knows what the future will bring.

Except maybe Gene Roddenberry.

Today, I've got a communicator (cell phone), a med scanner (blood sugar monitor), and access to Memory Alpha (the Internet).  All things that Gene and his staff dreamed up nearly forty-five years ago.  Things no one back in the Sixties believed would ever exist.

But even Gene believed in the power of story.  Whether a troop specialized in classical Shakespeare or a certain captain pretended to be noir P.I. Dixon Hill, people will still need their stories.

What form will these stories take?  Now that's the interesting question, isn't it?

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