“Thousands have lived without love, not one without water,” W.H. Auden, First Things First. Emotions run high in the issues involving ‘hydrofracking’ in the southern tier of New York State. The Marcellus Shale deposits of natural gas are extracted using the force of water and sand mixed with a secret toxic mix of chemicals to fracture the shale and release the gas. Greed, jealousy, betrayal, anger and fear dominate this local emotional landscape. Love is at the heart of this debate. Love of family, love of the land, love for Nature. Passion for the protection of fresh water is my sentiment in the debates. Hydrofracking is one of many attacks on the environment. There is no incentive to stop pollution. There is no profit in conservation. Those who maximize profits in the water and gas industries take advantage of a dwindling supply that cannot meet a growing demand. Pitting citizens against each and niggling over the specifics of the techniques and methods is to avoid the larger question of the unsustainable nature of such a model of economic development. Nearly a decade ago, Vandana Shiva brought the focus to the global political economy of water as the new oil for this millennium in her book Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution and Profit. Last year Bill McKibben’s Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet made global climate change a foregone conclusion with mounting evidence that we are past the tipping point. There are no snowcaps left on the Andes Mountains…
I recently read about a writer who gets up at 4 am to write. She says she is flooded with ideas at that time of day and glad to have a computer because she is not able to write fast enough by hand to get all her thoughts down on paper. It is also the only time of day when she has free time to… [Read More]
Filed Under: caffeine, coffee, water, wine
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Do you tell yourself you need a couple of days when your calendar is free from distractions before you can sit down and start to write? Then when the weekend arrives you sleep late, catch up on correspondence, watch a movie, and maybe make time to stare at a blank screen. In a block of eight hours without any other commitments, you’re lucky if you… [Read More]
Filed Under: #amwriting, E. L. Doctorow, Ernest Hemingway, sprints, Stephen King, time poverty, write longhand
Each summer, the University of Iowa offers dozens of writing workshops open to writers at any level through its Iowa Summer Writing Festival — this year in its 30th year. The university, of course, is known for housing the nation’s premier MFA program in creative writing. The summer festival brings some of the same top-notch literary talent to the table, offering a taste of that… [Read More]
As a writer, you may assume you will have the copyright of your book when it is published. If you write for magazines or newspapers, you may need to negotiate rights over your own written material — one time use — but these days, once you write something, you are assumed to own the copyright from that moment on. Although historically there were some European… [Read More]
Not every author has an agent or an intellectual property rights attorney who can advocate for their rights and protect their work. So what do you need to know? You might be surprised if you “lawyer up,” your contract offer may be withdrawn. Why? Most publishers offer contracts which use boilerplate language and they do not negotiate every term and condition for each contract they… [Read More]
Filed Under: advances, Authors Guild, contracts, Copyright, Fair Contract Initiative, remainders, rights, royalties