Bonus Post: I Don't Want To Live On This Planet Anymore

Because people like this guy live on it, too.

You know, we writers are often lauded as intellectuals. Actual writers know that such is far from the truth, as most of us are simple dreamers and lowly scribes. A solid grasp on ways to accurately and efficiently use the English language are not always testimonies to how much a person generally knows about reality.

Hell, there are people out there with Ph.Ds who have no clue what the real world is like. This, friends, is why the human race is doomed.

You all know that I don't support SOPA or PIPA already. I've done a rant on it before, and I intend to do many more before the shitstorm has passed. Because of SOPA and everyone who is backing it, I'm seriously considering following in the footsteps of Cory Doctorow and releasing all of my books under a Creative Commons licence. I normally keep swearing to a minimum so that I'll appear to know more than 100 words, but I absolutely hate how everyone claiming ownership to art has taken all of the passion out of creation. e.e. cummings truly did see a clear picture of society and its future when he claimed in his poem Now Does Our World Descend that "create" had become "contrive".

I wonder if he suspected just how true his statement of how freedom was what made a slave would become in the following century. Everyone wants nothing more than to be worshiped by "the little people" for their amazing talent. I have no more talent than a monkey, and I'm not afraid to admit it to anyone. I'm a firm believer in the creative belief of the artist as a vessel. While most people like to think of themselves as  great geniuses of their time, I know that I just put my pen down on the page and write what comes out. I don't sit in front of a fireplace with patches on my elbows and a pipe hanging out of my mouth muttering, "Yes. Indeed." every time a good idea occurs to me. The best writers are nothing more than idiot savants to something greater and larger than themselves.

Maybe Lord Xenu. No one really knows for sure.

That being said, I don't want to rock back and forth with copies of my stories hissing, "No, they're mine and you can't have them!" to everyone who tries to get close to me. I hate to break it to anyone who has ever worshiped their own work, but that story stopped being yours the moment someone else read it. Without readers, writers are nothing more than glorified bums.

I've mentioned before how much I loved the manga Hanako and the Terror of Allegory just because the protagonists kicked the writer's ass at the end for getting too greedy with her stories, which belonged to the readers.

In light of SOPA, I want to go ahead and tell everyone reading my blog and future stories that my most urgent wish is for you to make them your own. I was appalled to find out that people have actually been sued over fanfiction, because in my opinion it is the sincerest form a flattery a writer can receive. Stop being an money grubbing asshat and be proud that you've created something so great that it lives outside of itself. Can you imagine what our language would have been like today if something like SOPA existed in the fifteenth century and Shakespeare had everyone who used one of his invented phrases put in jail?

Everyone who has ever lived owes me three times the national debt. 

Please take this blog post to heart. I know this sounds cheesy, but I need all of you so much. A writer who wants to hurt his readers for keeping his stories in their hearts and lending his books to their friends is no writer at all. He's just a tiny version of those big record companies who don't give a crap about how many tears you've cried while listening to that one song that the artist only got half of a cent for. I felt sick when I found out that book lending actually does piss off quite a few writers.

Like Whitman, I'm a noiseless, patient spider casting out my web and hoping that it catches on to one of your hearts. Just one. That's all I need. I've listened to readers talking about how much their favorite writers have changed their lives and dreamed of the day when someone, just one person, would give me that same look and tell me how the stories that I've written have helped them to escape.

SOPA? So What?

THIS is what, damnit.

So SOPA is probably going to pass today. I've been listening to the hearing, and the entire thing can basically be summed up with one phrase:

"I'M OLD! WHAT'S THE INTERNET?"

I'm also guessing that no one--or almost no one--who is reading this blog post even knows what SOPA is. That almost makes me as sick to my stomach as the things being said in Congress. This thing can and will kill the entire Internet, and ninety percent of the population hasn't even heard of it.

Imagine every single website that even mentions something copyrighted is taken down.

Now imagine that websites can be taken down just because someone claims to own a copyright that they do not even own.

That's pretty much it. Only, well, it's so much more complicated than that--and horrifying. The Internet will be completely void of content provided by users. If you're thinking, "Hey, wait, that's the entire Internet!" then good job, you  understand the dangers.

The Internet was once the one and only place that total free speech still existed. Well, not anymore. What's perhaps the most sickening part of this whole fiasco is that SOPA won't just effect the United States. It's going to effect other countries, too, and just about everyone who uses the Internet.

There are lots of reasons why I'm an indie author, and none of them are that I'm a hipster. I hate hipsters with a burning passion.I don't want my stories to be at the mercy of what someone out there thinks people want to read. If someone wants to read what I write, they can. If they don't, they shouldn't. I don't want to change it to make uninterested people read it. If it's not their cup of tea, it's not their cup of tea. My worst fear is having an editor change my hypothetical zombie novel into an erotic spy thriller before it hits shelves. I want to write what I want to write. If there's editing, I want it to be because I screwed up in the plot consistency or made a grammar error.

Ladies and gentlemen, they are now going to edit and regulate the Internet if this thing isn't stopped.

And let's face it. If what I heard in those hearings is true, they're going to pass SOPA no matter what because they gave the bill a fancy enough name.

Here are more links:

The nightmarish SOPA hearings
How SOPA would affect you
How SOPA Affects Gamers
Stop SOPA, Save the Internet
And one more

Well. I'm going to go listen to Rage Against the Machine and prepare myself for the imminent shutdown of my blog because I mentioned "Rage Against the Machine" and I don't own the band.