Author: Jon Chaisson

I was contemplating posting this on Walk in Silence instead, as it originally pertained to music, but I think it works a little better here, as it’s more about the creativity side than the sounds.

A few weeks back the Republican National Convention took place in Cleveland, and aside from the various dumpster fires that went on before, during and after it, I was once again struck by that party’s consistent borrowing of music without requesting permission.

Now, before I go into any potentially divisive politics here, this is purely from the standpoint of the creator.  I’m a big proponent of ownership, and at least giving the creator their due when necessary.

All too often I see examples of creative works being borrowed for entertainment or financial or even social gain, often without mentioning the creator’s name.  This is especially rampant in the art world, where a creator posts their artwork on Tumblr or DeviantArt or Instagram (or any of the other art-themed social media platforms), and on occasion has had corporations such as Hot Topic ‘borrowing’ said art to print on their own branded clothing, without ever contacting the artist.  [And yes, sometimes they will even go so far as to have an in-house artist ‘draw’ the same exact image with minimal changes just to flirt with any legal loopholes.]  Or even on the public level, where their work will be reposted hither and yon without any note of its origin (sometimes it’s even edited out of the picture), thus it becoming lost in the wild and misconstrued as public domain.  This is why many of the artists have gone so far as to put watermarks across their work.  They’ll have a clean version if you want it–you just need to ask permission and perhaps give them payment for it.  Fair is fair.

Music is another field where this happens all too often.  In regards to the RNC, they were using numerous well-known songs as entrance music — sometimes to the point that it was a little too close to pro-wrestling at times.  They almost never ask permission, even though music publishers always have some kind of Terms of Use rules in their publishing contracts.  [There is also the simple fact that, yes, the creator may not agree with your political message and not want to be associated with it in any way.]

The thing that always gets me is how often these conventions will choose a song without ever actually listening to what the song may be about.  They’ll just go with whatever sounds cool.  Ronald Reagan famously wanted to use Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” — an angry anti-war song.  Not that long ago, Sarah Palin used Heart’s “Barracuda” due to it being an old nickname in her past…even though the song is essentially an angry rant about sexism.   And recently: Ivanka Trump came onstage to The Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun” — a song inspired by taking the day off from work to enjoy nature.  And both David Bowie’s “Station to Station” and The Who’s “Eminence Front” were played by the house band at this year’s RNC; both are songs referencing heavy drug use.

Each time I hear things like this, I immediately think: you do know what this song’s about…right?  And soon after, the musician will publicly denounce its use.  It reminds me of that boat cruise commercial that used Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life” (a drug-fueled track inspired by a William Burroughs novel) or a game unit commercial using Sublime’s “Santeria” (a song about a violent and jealous ex-boyfriend) as a happy singalong.  They’re focusing completely on the music’s sound and ignoring the context.  It’s all style and no substance.

[Yes, I know someone out there will argue that ‘both sides do it’, but I’m pretty sure that ‘the other side’ usually makes an attempt to clear the permission beforehand.  When Bill Clinton used Fleetwood Mac’s “Don’t Stop”, at least the context made sense (it’s a song about determination during the most trying times), and they invited the band to play it live as well.  The DNC more often than not pays attention to what songs they use and how they use them.]

In this internet age, it’s no longer a time of getting away with this kind of thing and saying ‘oops, my bad’ afterwards.  Creators – and fans – can now respond instantly.  My point being: if you’re going to use someone’s creation for public use, the least you should do is ask permission, whether it’s an artwork or a song or a segment of a book.  And there’s a lot of creative work out there, not just the popular works: you may just find the perfect entrance song out there on Bandcamp instead of on Tidal.

Be courteous to the creators, and they may just be accommodating to whatever project you need them for.

Hey there! Writing this post on my phone at the Minneapolis-St Paul airport as we wait for our connecting flight home from our vacation. We had all kinds of fun in Paris and London  (transportation hub complaints aside) and I’ll have many pictures to share. I was able to get a good chunk of galley editing done for The Persistence of Memories as well, so I should have the physical Createspace books available soon.

Regular entries here at WtBt should resume later this week. Thanks for waiting! 

Woo!  Long-awaited two-week vacation is just a few days away!  I’ll be afk during that time (and we will be at Outside Lands upon return), so there won’t be any new posts for the next few weeks.  I’ll be returning to the blog in mid-August.

Upon return, I’d like to return to the Monday & Friday posting update here at WtBt.  Lots of things have been happening this month, most of it pretty cool from a writing perspective, so I’m looking forward to sharing some of the thoughts and ideas and plans with you when I can.

Thanks for playing along, looking forward to seeing you when I return!

The problem with my writing process is that sometimes I have too much of an open mind to new ideas.

So here I am, printing out the 2014-15 version of The Balance of Light (the version that still has the original first chapter I excised a short time ago), all 566 pages of it, and knowing that it’s way too damn long for a single book.  I’m still trying to figure out a way to edit this story so that it’s a) solid, b) comprehensible, and c) retaining the original ideas I set forth.  It’s going to take some time.  As you’ve heard me say numerous times here already.

And of course, while printing all this out, running it through the hole-puncher, and putting it into a big three-ring binder, my mind starts wandering…

WRITER BRAIN: Hmm.  Does it really need to be a trilogy?

EDITOR BRAIN:  STOP.  Stop. Right. There.

WRITER BRAIN: What?

EDITOR BRAIN:  I know what you’re thinking.  You want to keep what you’ve got and divvy it up into two parts.

WRITER BRAIN: What’s wrong with that?  Writers do it all the time.

EDITOR BRAIN: You don’t want to go that route.  You’ll have even more chaff than you already–

WRITER BRAIN:  Look.  A. said that she liked Book 1, but felt it was too long.  I distinctly remember she said it could have been two books.

EDITOR BRAIN: That doesn’t–

WRITER BRAIN: Okay, maybe that one doesn’t need to be divvied up (or maybe it does, but I won’t go into that right now), but you know I’m already going to be going through Book 3 for the thousandth time to see where I can cut things.

EDITOR BRAIN: Good.

WRITER BRAIN: And you know we’ve always had issues with the beginning.  Even when I was writing the damn thing it felt wrong.  There’s no beginning to it.  It just….there’s no build-up to Act I at all.  It just starts about a third of the way into Act I.

EDITOR BRAIN: …I’ll give you that.  But–

WRITER BRAIN:  Which means we have two ways we can go about this.  We can either look at what we’ve got, do some shuffling and revising, maybe a bit more writing.  Yes?  I guarantee we’ll have even more pages than we started with.

EDITOR BRAIN: But–

WRITER BRAIN: You said it yourself.  You don’t want to follow the preordained rules with the project.  You want to do it how you want to do it.  How it makes sense to you.

EDITOR BRAIN: …

WRITER BRAIN: Am I right?

EDITOR BRAIN: …yes, you’re right.

WRITER BRAIN: So why close up an avenue that might actually help the story?  Who knows?  Maybe cutting The Balance of Light into two books makes more sense, as it gives us more breathing room to sufficiently cover every plot point that needs covering.

EDITOR BRAIN: …

WRITER BRAIN: Face it, EB.  You know I’m right.  Why does it have to be a trilogy?  I mean, yes, I know the psychology behind it.  Weird as it is.  But there are just some stories that make more sense when they’re not constrained by a rigid format.

EDITOR BRAIN: It’ll all end in tears, you know.

WRITER BRAIN: Yes, I know.  But you never know until you try.

So yeah…that happened.  This writing gig can get a bit…weird, sometimes.

Fine.  Let’s just get this out in the open:  I’ve got some serious problems with The Balance of Light.

What problems, you say?

–A directionless beginning full of scenes that aren’t working.
–Flat dialogue that doesn’t work.
–A bloated manuscript that needs to be cut by at least a third, if not more.
–A lot of ‘stage direction’ prose.

I’m sure there’s more, but I won’t go into it.  That’s not what this post is about.  I’m trying to be optimistic, damn it all!  🙂

But there it is.  I knew this was the Problem Child of the trilogy.  I knew there were a lot of issues that needed to be fixed.  I will fully admit to doing a lot of “I’ll fix it later” when I was writing it.  And during all those rereads and edits, I’d been making mental notes of what worked and what needed fixing.  I wasn’t quite avoiding it; more that I wanted to focus more on the first two books, before putting all my focus on this big beast.  And guess what?  That ‘later’ has finally arrived.  I have to fix it NOW.

Here’s a secret in the creative world:  when a writer or an artist or a musician goes past their expected deadline (even if it’s just a personal one), chances are good that they’re currently in the same boat as I am at present — that their work needs…well, a lot of work.  And more to the point, we would really rather not put out a half-assed piece of crap.  Or as Judith Tarr said to me once: don’t phone it in, the readers will know.  Trust me when I say we’re not procrastinating or ignoring our creations.  We’re trying to sculpt a giant statue out of a giant mountain and we want to get it right.  Quite often while juggling a Day Job.

So what does this mean for The Balance of Light?

Well.  First off, I’m pretty sure I’m gonna blow right past my self-imposed autumn deadline.  I kind of had a feeling that would happen, anyway, so I’m not that worried about it.  I’ll keep everyone updated on it who’s interested.  I’m planning on going a bit old-school and printing it out so I have a tangible copy of it to work with.  There may be some further revision and rewriting.  But I will get it done.

And for that I thank you all for being so patient!