From: mumble@nomail.invalid   
      
   On 06/12/2014 09:26 PM, David Friedman wrote:   
   > On 6/12/14, 3:19 AM, mumble wrote:   
   >> On 06/11/2014 09:24 AM, Jacey Bedford wrote:   
   >>> On 11/06/2014 09:32, mumble wrote:   
   >>>> On 06/09/2014 10:17 PM, Bill Swears wrote:   
   >>>>> On 6/3/2014 5:47 PM, Carl Dershem wrote:   
   >>>>>> For a current WIP:   
   >>>>>>   
   >>>>>> You are given one wish (with the usual caveats - no wishing for more   
   >>>>>> wishes, no breaking the wall between life and death, no interfering   
   >>>>>> with   
   >>>>>> someone else's Free Will).  What do you wish for?   
   >>>>>>   
   >>>>>> cd   
   >>>>>>   
   >>>>>   
   >>>>> A three book contract.   
   >>>>   
   >>>> Contracts are muse-death.   
   >>>   
   >>>   
   >>> Yes, dear, of course they are.   
   >>> :-)   
   >>   
   >> Yes honeybunch, they certainly are; compare having a contract which   
   >> obligates you to grind out the words, with having the ability to write   
   >> as much or as little as you choose, or perhaps just sit and stare off   
   >> into space, and see if you don't agree that a muse constrained by your   
   >> obligations is perhaps not the happiest of muses.   
   >   
   > I think you are over generalizing. Different things work for different   
   > people. For some, a contract is a useful commitment strategy.   
      
   If you need a contract as a "commitment strategy" then you are not truly   
   committed to what you are doing and should likely be doing something   
   else instead.   
      
   > An example from another field. A very long time ago I wrote two articles   
   > on two very different legal systems. They were fun articles and I   
   > learned a lot in the process of doing the research. About ten years ago,   
   > it occurred to me that I had done nothing of the sort for too long and   
   > should do more.   
   >   
   > So I invented a seminar on legal systems very different from ours,   
   > announced I was going to teach it. At which point I had to find and   
   > research enough legal systems to fill a semester. The result is a book   
   > draft currently up on my web page for comments.   
   >   
   > Another example is my trick for getting myself to finish a (nonfiction)   
   > book. Write a draft. Assign the book as the reading for a course I am   
   > about to teach. Now I have to get each chapter into something close to a   
   > final form by the week it is assigned for. I've done it for two or three   
   > books now.   
   >   
   > On the other hand, I don't use contracts with publishers that way. I   
   > first get the book reasonably finished, then go looking for a publisher.   
      
   Exactly, you have invested your time and created a product which you can   
   then sell as you like, rather than selling a promise then spending your   
   indenture doing something that requires a legal contract to bind you to   
   it; you are writing as an entrepreneur, rather than as an employee.   
      
   The important things keep coming back by themselves to require that you   
   deal with them, no "commitment strategy" is required; the unimportant   
   things serve primarily to prevent one from doing the important things.   
      
   > Like you, I don't have to make a living by my writing. If I did, I can   
   > see that a contract would have another virtue, a way of being reasonably   
   > confident that I could spend my time on writing and still feed myself   
   > and my family.   
      
   If you believe you can acceptably support your family on that, you must   
   be either very good, or very delusional.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)