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A friend and I have been talking about objectivism in art, particularly in lit. there is not really any good objectivist writing so we have been talking about opening a publishing house.

here is what we would like to have for our first publication.

10-short childrens books (no more than 60 pages)

6- youth novels/novella's

3- novels

3- books on politics. (not in the modern journalistic style something that will sell for more than six months and then be out of date)

we would also like a few anthologies of short stories and poems.

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Alan,

That's an intriguing opening. Could you tell us something about yourself, your experience--or at least your basic business plan if you are just starting?

You should also start with a way for people to contact you. There is a way by private message, but Rule No. 1 in business is to not make the customer guess at how to get in touch with you.

Contacting me first would have been helpful, also. You might have been flagged as a spammer. (You still might if you turn out to be one, since I know nothing about you.)

Michael

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Agree with MSK--

You have to realize how gnarly it is for authors, especially nowadays. People just sneak into sites and try to be unobtrusive, leave it hanging there. Many times, this is done to get submissions that can be used elsewhere. Or worse, to pull the uninitiated into some kind of fee-based gig (self-publishing is a totally valid format, but there are both good and bad places to do that, the slimier ones looking no different than the old "vanity press" outfits).

What I find curious is that you have already determined amounts and categories. But, that might just be how far you have gotten with it. You are going to have to prove you are legitimate. It is a bit strange to just jump out of the gate and start talking about an unformed business, yet request products. It tends to flow the other way.

As Michael said, provide contact, at the least.

Edited by Rich Engle
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Thank you for the feedback.

first in addressing how to get in contact with me, the best way at this moment in time is to private message me. We (my friend and I) are not asking for commitments we are simply trying to probe to see if there is enough lit. out there to justify what we want to do, or if not if there are enough authors who are willing to write the lit.

How this came about.

I read a lot, until about 2 years ago i did not read books written before 1920 (nothing not even required reading books in High School). I read Ayn Rand for the first time two years ago and cant get enough (I think I now own and have read everything that has been published concerning her works). My friend is the same way he loves to read. The two of us quite frankly are tired of reading trash. I myself am an author with no little skill. I have never tried to get any of my work published because I do not write for the enjoyment of others. The tipping point came when over this summer I have tried to find youth novels for my 15 year old niece that were good, and also would help develop her morally(fiction is the best teacher). This added to a conversation I had with my friend about "Objectivist Culture" if such a thing can be said to exist finally lead us to the conclusion that there should be a publishing house and eventually cultural group to promote Objectivist Art.

Though Rand uses the term Romantic to define her particular type of Art, Objectivist Art is a type of Romantic Art. The difference between what I define as Romantic Objectivist Art, and Romantic Art is that R.O.A. promotes a particular set of values, it would be the difference between Romantic Christian Art, or Romantic Jewish Art, though the subject of the art may not be a religious theme the values represented by the particular belief system are present.

What my friend and I want to do is to start with Lit. and gather under one roof (so to speak) R.O.A. so that those who enjoy that type of Art do not have to hunt 40 different publishers to find one book in ten thousand to find what they want. We also want to develop not just adult Lit. but child and youth Lit as well. What I consider to be one of the greatest mistakes of Authors who are Objectivists is ignoring this category of readers. From personal experience does anyone else have a clue how difficult it is to undo the crap which young children learn in fiction? The altruist immorality, the destruction of the mind, and of the ego. Don't make the mistake of thinking I am suggesting something on the scale of We the Living or Atlas Shrugged for children, no something more simple is what is required at that age, however why do we want to allow the enemy free reign on the mind of children? The only way to have Galts Gulch is to change the culture and we need to not just try and change adult culture. This is why we need authors of different genera's as well as different age groups.

As fair warning if there are enough people interested we are not going to publish just anything by anyone who says "hey I am an objectivist here is my work", its got to be good.

as to amounts and categories. This is something that we are using as a general rule of thumb, we would like to have about that when we do the first release, ideally we would have much more and than do new releases every few months but we are not yet sure IF it would be worth it to get this off the ground. This is more a feeler like "Is there anyone else out there". I am continuing research to find out what it will cost and what is needed if there are enough people interested, however it comes back to basic economics, supply and demand. If no one is interested why waste the time and actually set up the company? This is exactly why i did not say "Send me your story" or give contact details. I want to take a measure first. Are there enough customers for what I want to sell?

on a final note.

We want to do the publication digitally for the most part and would probably only produce certain books in paper and hard back. There are a few reasons for this the first being that while i do not ever see physical books going away i do see them being replaced by digital copies. The second is cost. Not only would it allow us to attract customers with lower prices for the product (due to elimination of a massive overhead) but it would also allow us to pay a larger portion to the Author (due to cut back in overhead). This is something that my friend and I go back and forth on because there are downsides and benefits to digital over physical. As far as the physical vs digital debate (to give everyone an idea where we are at) All of the childrens books would need to have physical copies (added to the digital counter part) no body wants a child drooling on their ipad. the teen books at least a portion would need physical counter parts. As to the adult books only the best would have physical copies. IF someone really wanted a physical copy of a book we would do a Print on Demand type of thing.

As I said this is not off the ground this is a feeler is there anyone who would be interested in giving this a shot? I don't want to invest who knows how many hours and end up empty handed at the end. My friend and I are developing this in our spare time, if there are enough people interested we will devote much more time and have a full plan ready within a month to present to those who are interested.

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Ayn Rand never did any Objectivist art--not even her husband--so how can anyone else?

There is no such thing as Objectivist art, psychology, physics--or even aesthetics. All such claimed to be is only dunderheaded dogmatic.

--Brant

a few waves against the concrete

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I have already explained what I mean by objective art. Objectivism is a philosophical system. Romantic is a type of art. Thus the art that we are looking to promote by this is romantic in style and objectivist in philosophy. The dogmatism sounds like it's coming from Brant. You create new terms when the old ones are not sufficient. This Romantic objective art.

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I have already explained what I mean by objective art. Objectivism is a philosophical system. Romantic is a type of art. Thus the art that we are looking to promote by this is romantic in style and objectivist in philosophy. The dogmatism sounds like it's coming from Brant. You create new terms when the old ones are not sufficient. This Romantic objective art.

That's what you get for capitalizing it: "Objectivist Art." You "don't write for the enjoyment of others." That's quite a twist on Victor Hugo who wrote that if he were only writing for the present he'd not write. You come here trolling for value without really telling us who you and your friend are and not offering any actual value in return. It's rather easy to publish electronically so who needs an electronic publishing house? You are coming across as an elitist snob. If you, "an author with no little skill," are not interested in putting your work out there, why should anybody else put out their work for you? "Oh, here's another submission. I write better than this crap--toss!"

--Brant

I prefer Victor Pross

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I have already explained what I mean by objective art. Objectivism is a philosophical system. Romantic is a type of art. Thus the art that we are looking to promote by this is romantic in style and objectivist in philosophy. The dogmatism sounds like it's coming from Brant. You create new terms when the old ones are not sufficient. This Romantic objective art.

That's what you get for capitalizing it: "Objectivist Art." You "don't write for the enjoyment of others." That's quite a twist on Victor Hugo who wrote that if he were only writing for the present he'd not write. You come here trolling for value without really telling us who you and your friend are and not offering any actual value in return. It's rather easy to publish electronically so who needs an electronic publishing house? You are coming across as an elitist snob. If you, "an author with no little skill," are not interested in putting your work out there, why should anybody else put out their work for you? "Oh, here's another submission. I write better than this crap--toss!"

--Brant

I prefer Victor Pross

Yet again i state this is an inquiry to see if there are others who are interested. This is in the beginning stages and I personally do not want to do the loads of work it would take to put this together and then find out that no one is interested. The reason for a publishing house of this kind is so that those who are interested in this particular type of Art would be able to find it easily. Three dozen different authors publishing themselves does not lend itself well to piggy backing. The idea is to publish works with a similar aesthetic and philosophical value in the same place to allow readers to piggy back from one author to the other.

As to me not publishing my work. Up to this point I have never considered it for various reasons not the least of which is that until a few years ago I had a major hangup about being dyslexic. Because of things I have mentioned i am reconsidering and if i did this i would publish some of my work.

as for your assessment of the criteria we would throw out works that don't meet the criteria, however I would no more judge them against my work than i would Rand's.

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Suspect everything, and everyone, and every new project of being fraudulent. Drench all requests for help in withering cynicism and charges of "spamming" and "trolling." Discourage anyone seeking assistance or, in the new and useful concept, "crowdsourcing." Dump on any and all entrepreneurial ideas.

The usual Objectivist-ish cultural M.O. is operating quite efficiently around here, I see. As it has long been doing elsewhere.

I'm not naïve, not after nearly 30 years on the Net (and precursors). I know that many are running scams. I know that most such projects are poorly defined. (I should. Some of mine have been.) Ineptitude, such as not making clear in an initial post that private responses are wanted, doesn't at all help one's cause. I grant all that freely.

Nonetheless, if such initiative is vigorously discouraged from the start, or likened to abusive touchstones such as the experience with Pross, doesn't this say something about how stagnant Objectivist-ish culture has become?

May the non-existent gods forbid that I actually announce any personal project here. I wonder how Newberry endured doing it with his gallery. I couldn't make it to his opening or recent exhibition, to my great regret ... so did the rest of you in the L.A. area show up with cans of spray paint? {/sarcasm}

Edited by Greybird
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Yet again i state this is an inquiry to see if there are others who are interested. This is in the beginning stages and I personally do not want to do the loads of work it would take to put this together and then find out that no one is interested. The reason for a publishing house of this kind is so that those who are interested in this particular type of Art would be able to find it easily. Three dozen different authors publishing themselves does not lend itself well to piggy backing. The idea is to publish works with a similar aesthetic and philosophical value in the same place to allow readers to piggy back from one author to the other.

As to me not publishing my work. Up to this point I have never considered it for various reasons not the least of which is that until a few years ago I had a major hangup about being dyslexic. Because of things I have mentioned i am reconsidering and if i did this i would publish some of my work.

as for your assessment of the criteria we would throw out works that don't meet the criteria, however I would no more judge them against my work than i would Rand's.

This is better. You're letting us see some of you now. Sorry for the sour post. I like the idea of "piggy backing."

--Brant

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Suspect everything, and everyone, and every new project of being fraudulent. Drench all requests for help in withering cynicism and charges of "spamming" and "trolling." Discourage anyone seeking assistance or, in the new and useful concept, "crowdsourcing." Dump on any and all entrepreneurial ideas.

The usual Objectivist-ish cultural M.O. is operating quite efficiently around here, I see. As it has long been doing elsewhere.

I'm not naïve, not after nearly 30 years on the Net (and precursors). I know that many are running scams. I know that most such projects are poorly defined. (I should. Some of mine have been.) Ineptitude, such as not making clear in an initial post that private responses are wanted, doesn't at all help one's cause. I grant all that freely.

Nonetheless, if such initiative is vigorously discouraged from the start, or likened to abusive touchstones such as the experience with Pross, doesn't this say something about how stagnant Objectivist-ish culture has become?

May the non-existent gods forbid that I actually announce any personal project here. I wonder how Newberry endured doing it with his gallery. I couldn't make it to his opening or recent exhibition, to my great regret ... so did the rest of you in the L.A. area show up with cans of spray paint? {/sarcasm}

Oh, it's not that bad on OL, even with me here.

--Brant

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Alan,

Here is a little practical advice.

Start by looking around on Amazon. Try to find people who list the kinds of works you want to read as their favorites. Search using keywords you imagine would be in this kind of literature (Ayn Rand, Objectivism, freedom, individualism, etc.) See what works come up normally. Look at the part that says readers who bought this also bought [other works with their thumbnails].

Make notes. Look at the publishers and Google them. See what else they publish.

I suspect you will not find very much new "Objectivist" fiction (or Romantic or whatever). In fact, I know you will not. There are two main reasons for that and I believe both have Rand herself at the root:

1. She was not a good writing teacher. (Yet people want to learn from her, as is normal.) I have been through both of the writing books (fiction writing and nonfiction writing) patched together by Tore Boeckmann from Ayn Rand's few classes. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of it, nor for what got included and what got left out. But I believe there is enough to get a gist of how Rand approached the teaching of writing. She basically did it by proclamation rather than nurturing talent.

The problem with this hamhanded didactic approach is that people of strong creative talent run from it. They run. They seek places where they can can get knowledge, but also can breathe. Where they can make glorious mistakes and learn from their failures. Where they can literally hone their craft without always worrying about someone's stern disapproval hovering over them. With a few notable exceptions like Erika Holzer, the only people who stayed around long enough to call Rand an artistic mentor were people of very low creative drive and talent, but who had a very strong wish to belong to an Objectivist movement. The artistic fruits of these kinds of people have not been very good..

To be fair, you will find some good advice Rand gave to aspiring writers in her letters, and in some of the things she wrote to others explaining her literary intents. There--in her letters--is where I believe the real writing lessons are with her. But even still, when she criticized works that writers submitted to her, you can sense a strong muse-killing attitude in her approach. At least I can.

The creative process is very delicate when a person is starting a new work. If the person you imagine to be the one to guide you constantly tells you, "That's wrong, that's wrong, you can't do that, you are wrecking the whole message, etc.," in really strong terms, especially in that beginning phase when you are emotionally wide open and full of doubts, you simply quit or go elsewhere. And those who slavishly obey produce mostly mediocre crap.

2. One of the real problems with adopting Objectivism as a philosophy is that your creative motivation gets shot all to hell from being overly severe with yourself. I don't think this is so much the fundamentals of the philosophy as Rand's portrayal of her fictional heroes and her own attitude. You learn to admire competence as a moral good, and that is a great thing, but you also become merciless on yourself regarding your own mistakes. That can become quite painful, so you simply procrastinate when you should get it out. And guilt comes from both mistakes and procrastination, but you ignore it because you read Rand hammer and hammer and hammer that guilt is bad and somehow a sign of moral weakness. So off in mental circles you go. You get to the point where you are terrified of being wrong.

Witness on forums how difficult it is for Objectivists to admit they are wrong. And when it comes, from what I have seen, it usually comes with great solemn ceremony as if seeking sacred atonement for some major transgression--accompanied by lots of blah blah blah in long-winded explanations and rationalizations. I rarely see someone say with lighthearted sincerity regarding something important, "Oops. I screwed that up big time. I guess I've got some work to do." Or something like that. And then go about merrily fixing it with no more thought to the error.

When you are the kind of uptight that Objectivists can get about being wrong and you are trying to create something important and good, you don't produce without great unnecessary pain. You have to push through creative paralysis caused by guilt and fear wedded to a severely critical attitude. (God, I wish Rand had not used the word "ruthless" so often to depict a good thing...) That usually means you don't produce at all, and what does get produced is stilted and clumsy as all get-out.

So back to you. You want to do a publisher based solely on Objectivist-Romantic kind of literature. Business-wise, I advise you to rethink that. A business exists to make money as its lifeblood. Without money, it doesn't matter how noble its mission is. It's dead in the water. So you have to have good products to sell and a market that will buy them. At the very least, if you truly value your mission and want it to become real, you need a hell of a good business plan, especially in today's economy.

So my advice is to survey the market--thinking specifically about supply and demand, look at what successful publishers are doing and try to discern their principles and use them as a starting model, and make a business plan.

Then seek talent.

If you notice that talent is hard to come by, you might want to go into another business (as there is too little supply), or you might want to see what you can do to foster the kind of talent that is capable of producing the works you admire.

As a matter of fact, fostering talent is one direction I am aimed at.

At any rate, these are my thoughts. Use them or ignore them, agree with them or disagree with them, at your own pleasure.

Good luck on your venture.

Michael

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Alan,

Here is a little practical advice.

Start by looking around on Amazon. Try to find people who list the kinds of works you want to read as their favorites. Search using keywords you imagine would be in this kind of literature (Ayn Rand, Objectivism, freedom, individualism, etc.) See what works come up normally. Look at the part that says readers who bought this also bought [other works with their thumbnails].

Make notes. Look at the publishers and Google them. See what else they publish.

I have done searches like that already which is part of the reason why i am looking at this option.

I suspect you will not find very much new "Objectivist" fiction (or Romantic or whatever). In fact, I know you will not. There are two main reasons for that and I believe both have Rand herself at the root:

1. She was not a good writing teacher. (Yet people want to learn from her, as is normal.) I have been through both of the writing books (fiction writing and nonfiction writing) patched together by Tore Boeckmann from Ayn Rand's few classes. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of it, nor for what got included and what got left out. But I believe there is enough to get a gist of how Rand approached the teaching of writing. She basically did it by proclamation rather than nurturing talent.

The problem with this hamhanded didactic approach is that people of strong creative talent run from it. They run. They seek places where they can can get knowledge, but also can breathe. Where they can make glorious mistakes and learn from their failures. Where they can literally hone their craft without always worrying about someone's stern disapproval hovering over them. With a few notable exceptions like Erika Holzer, the only people who stayed around long enough to call Rand an artistic mentor were people of very low creative drive and talent, but who had a very strong wish to belong to an Objectivist movement. The artistic fruits of these kinds of people have not been very good..

To be fair, you will find some good advice Rand gave to aspiring writers in her letters, and in some of the things she wrote to others explaining her literary intents. There--in her letters--is where I believe the real writing lessons are with her. But even still, when she criticized works that writers submitted to her, you can sense a strong muse-killing attitude in her approach. At least I can.

The creative process is very delicate when a person is starting a new work. If the person you imagine to be the one to guide you constantly tells you, "That's wrong, that's wrong, you can't do that, you are wrecking the whole message, etc.," in really strong terms, especially in that beginning phase when you are emotionally wide open and full of doubts, you simply quit or go elsewhere. And those who slavishly obey produce mostly mediocre crap.

I really enjoyed the Romantic Manifesto and it help me greatly. I think the problem with the Romantic Manifesto as well as the Art of fiction is that Objectivists that are trying to become authors or aurthors that become objectivists do exactly what Rand said not to do. In other words they say "look at Howard Roark" forgetting Howard Roark. From what i have seen in terms of many objectivists who attempt to write they try to monkey Mrs. Rand. They want long elogant speeches with deep philosophical meaning, they look at We the Living, Atlas Shrugged, and the Fountain Head and forget about the plays and short stories she wrote before that. Many would be authors (not just those who are objectivists) have the problem of trying to write more than they are ready for. There are two books which I would like to write and have spent the last 6 years developing in small party. I will not take on either of these projects full time yet however because I am not ready they are currently beyond me. I conceived both of these books before I discovered Objectivism and thus some of the things that I wanted to do in them will not work now, they are less integrated than they were before, so while i can keep the basic outlines I must completely think the plot theme as well as the structure of events.

Where I am able to reconsider and than reform my ideas in this way i think that many Objectivists take the Piekoff approach and become dogmatic in all the wrong places. For them everything becomes a question of Objectivist Dogma from the colour of their underwear to which hand they use to blow their noese "Well the goddess did not do it this way." and Heaven above & Hell below don't even suggest that she got something wrong. These people are unable to distinguish principle from anything else. I have discovered that as far as I understand her principles Rand was always right. However she was wrong about certain applications of those principles.

2. One of the real problems with adopting Objectivism as a philosophy is that your creative motivation gets shot all to hell from being overly severe with yourself. I don't think this is so much the fundamentals of the philosophy as Rand's portrayal of her fictional heroes and her own attitude. You learn to admire competence as a moral good, and that is a great thing, but you also become merciless on yourself regarding your own mistakes. That can become quite painful, so you simply procrastinate when you should get it out. And guilt comes from both mistakes and procrastination, but you ignore it because you read Rand hammer and hammer and hammer that guilt is bad and somehow a sign of moral weakness. So off in mental circles you go. You get to the point where you are terrified of being wrong.
you here demonstrate what I mean about principle and Rand. Rand never ever said guilt is bad she said unearned guilt is bad and there is a rather vast distinction. Guilt itself is an emotional response to something, and just like phobia's are an irrational fear so unearned guilt is irrational. When these autors experience guilt over their writing they should step back and examine the emotion. Is the guilt due to a betrayal of ones values in the piece written? if so than the guilt is earned and the error needs be corrected. If the guilt is due to expecting Atlas Shrugged on ones first try than the guilt is irrational.
Witness on forums how difficult it is for Objectivists to admit they are wrong. And when it comes, from what I have seen, it usually comes with great solemn ceremony as if seeking sacred atonement for some major transgression--accompanied by lots of blah blah blah in long-winded explanations and rationalizations. I rarely see someone say with lighthearted sincerity regarding something important, "Oops. I screwed that up big time. I guess I've got some work to do." Or something like that. And then go about merrily fixing it with no more thought to the error.

When you are the kind of uptight that Objectivists can get about being wrong and you are trying to create something important and good, you don't produce without great unnecessary pain. You have to push through creative paralysis caused by guilt and fear wedded to a severely critical attitude. (God, I wish Rand had not used the word "ruthless" so often to depict a good thing...) That usually means you don't produce at all, and what does get produced is stilted and clumsy as all get-out.

the problem is (and here Nietzsche was right) there are too many people who are taught to read who don't know how to read. there is a vast difference between knowing there are words on a page and knowing what they mean when put together in a specific structure. they are unable to conceptualize and comprehend what is originally meant by the author.
So back to you. You want to do a publisher based solely on Objectivist-Romantic kind of literature. Business-wise, I advise you to rethink that. A business exists to make money as its lifeblood. Without money, it doesn't matter how noble its mission is. It's dead in the water. So you have to have good products to sell and a market that will buy them. At the very least, if you truly value your mission and want it to become real, you need a hell of a good business plan, especially in today's economy.

So my advice is to survey the market--thinking specifically about supply and demand, look at what successful publishers are doing and try to discern their principles and use them as a starting model, and make a business plan.

Then seek talent.

If you notice that talent is hard to come by, you might want to go into another business (as there is too little supply), or you might want to see what you can do to foster the kind of talent that is capable of producing the works you admire.

As a matter of fact, fostering talent is one direction I am aimed at.

At any rate, these are my thoughts. Use them or ignore them, agree with them or disagree with them, at your own pleasure.

Good luck on your venture.

Michael

I actually think that now is an optimal time to start something like this because of the economic situation. I am beginning to develop the business plan and it looks like if we do most of the publishing digitally that the cost will be rather low and the price able to be charged is lower still. as far as fostering talent I don't care if this takes 10 years to get off the ground as long as there are others who are interested in trying to get it off the ground. but i dont want to start a project to change the culture and this be a two man army (my friend and I).

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equality,

I want to clarify something.

I know the earned/unearned guilt thing. But I was talking about a specific context--the beginning stages of a writing project.

Earned guilt and unearned guilt is a distinction that a person in that position does not take time out to examine. And even if he did that, this whole thing would still kill his creativity.

Imagine trying to project a novel or short story, at a complete loss as to what "perfect human being" you want to project (so you can do it the Randian way) other than, say, looking at her projected perfect people (especially the top dude who has a face "without pain or fear or guilt"), feeling really lost and uneasy which brings with it the feeling of guilt. You have some ideas, but getting it right just doesn't seem to be within grasp. But you know you have to start writing soon.

Now imagine this. At this moment, you step back and think, "Why am I feeling guilt? Is it earned or unearned?"

You have just now stopped thinking about your writing.

And if you go down that rabbit hole, what do you do if you decide it is earned? Or worse, what do you do if you decide it is unearned, but you still feel it?

I know what you don't do.

You don't write.

Michael

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Greybeard (Steve):

I wonder how Newberry endured doing it with his gallery. I couldn't make it to his opening or recent exhibition, to my great regret ... so did the rest of you in the L.A. area show up with cans of spray paint? {/sarcasm}

Steve, there isn't anything to endure. I love making, teaching, and sharing art - at least, the art I make and love. Fortunately, there are quite a few people that respond, and a few objectivists as well.

I differ with Michael(MSK) about Rand being a lousy teacher. I loved reading The Art of Fiction Writing, I remember it making a lot of sense, and I am thankful that she opted to spend ANY time writing about her process. Rembrandt wrote only one sentence! And Michelangelo only a few pages. I would have welcomed more from them.

Regarding Alan Smith, it's a risk, which can make things exciting and difficult and no one is omniscient--so if you love the idea passionately, go for it.

Michael

Edited by Newberry
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Michael,

I didn't say Rand was a lousy teacher (in general). I said, "She was not a good writing teacher."

Even then, I should have qualified that further to fiction. She was an OK nonfiction writing teacher, or at least, she was much better at that than as a fiction writing teacher.

A good writing teacher from the time she was active should have lots of students who have gone on to write great things.

Where are hers?

Especially in fiction?

You may or may not agree that a good teacher is seen in the overall production of her students. But that is my standard of judging a teacher.

Ergo, if a lifetime of teaching (to differing degrees and situations) by a famous author has resulted in hardly any writing students of any real impact, I hold there is something--or many things--that the teacher could have done a lot better.

As to Rand letting people look into her own view of writing, I agree that that's valuable. But that's for more advanced students if it is to be taken as a way to learn how to write.

In fact, I will be writing on this later. I think it is important to compare her method along with ideas from other writing teachers I have been studying, most notably, Robert McKee, Jack Truby, Blake Snyder and David Freeman. Granted, these are more geared towards movie writing than novels, but the basics of plot, character, theme, etc., are the same in both medias.

btw - The students of these dudes are some of the cream of blockbuster writers, with several Oscar winners among them.

Michael

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equality,

I want to clarify something.

I know the earned/unearned guilt thing. But I was talking about a specific context--the beginning stages of a writing project.

Earned guilt and unearned guilt is a distinction that a person in that position does not take time out to examine. And even if he did that, this whole thing would still kill his creativity.

Imagine trying to project a novel or short story, at a complete loss as to what "perfect human being" you want to project (so you can do it the Randian way) other than, say, looking at her projected perfect people (especially the top dude who has a face "without pain or fear or guilt"), feeling really lost and uneasy which brings with it the feeling of guilt. You have some ideas, but getting it right just doesn't seem to be within grasp. But you know you have to start writing soon.

Now imagine this. At this moment, you step back and think, "Why am I feeling guilt? Is it earned or unearned?"

You have just now stopped thinking about your writing.

And if you go down that rabbit hole, what do you do if you decide it is earned? Or worse, what do you do if you decide it is unearned, but you still feel it?

I know what you don't do.

You don't write.

Michael

Having read some of your posts before I started this thread I did not doubt that you knew the difference but only used that as a specific example for others who are reading this post. In discussions with audiences I have a habit of explaining things for the sake of the audience. I developed this habit mostly from arguing with Idiots who refuse to see truth, if it is just me and the idiot I will stop a discussion. However if there is an audiance I allow the debate to continue to demonstrate to the audiance which of the two of us is correct. I have expanded the practice from use beyond arguments with idiots to also encompass important points in public discussions. It allows for greater clarity and it is my hope that the audience can learn something new.

In this particular case I am sure that there are a number of people who will read this thread who understood and knew the difference between earned and unearned guilt. However unfortunately there are also a number of people who call themselves objectivists who really do believe that all guilt is bad.

In address to writing and the feeling of guilt. If the guilt is earned than the author needs to address that feeling and exorcise it by correcting the error, this can be solved by editing or rewriting the error in the writing. In a case of unearned guilt the first step to correcting this error of thinking (all emotions are a result of conscious or subconscious thought) is to identify it. once the error has been identified the next step is to place the situation into perspective, no painter becomes a master overnight, it takes years of practice and sometimes decades. In the same way for any novice to compare themself to a master is a logical absurdity and should be seen as such. The biggest cause however of this unearned guilt among many authors who are objectivists is that they try painting the Mona Lisa before learning to draw a stik figure, or as the old axiom goes "one must learn to crawl before they walk, and to walk before they run."

Rands greatest mistake in the Art of Fiction (i have not read the art of non-fiction) and in the Romantic Manifesto is that she does not reveal the development of a writer, for this reason I will list here some simple exercises for those who are interested.

1) Character writing- This is the development of Characters absent of any true story. (think Anthem) The writer is more interested in showing the thought process of the character, for aid the author may create a general scene or event. It may also help to fictionalize real people around you, by this I mean take a real person around you examine their behavior and their philosophy of life and write a fictional back story to explain the persons philosophy and behavior, the best writers are the best psychologists.

2) The re-write- It is good practice for beginning authors to take works which have already been written (and that the copyright has expired on) and re-write parts or all of that work. Find the flaws in plot, in the characters, and in the style. My personal favorite when I began (even before I read Rand) was The Driver. I myself have rewritten parts and the entire novel several times each time is a little different than the time before. With this particular novel what allowed me to improve on it was the journalistic style in which it was written, I translated the work from a piece of journalistic fiction into a piece of Romantic fiction. In my favorite version of my rewrite I almost completely rewrote the character of Henry Galt, and subtracted one of his daughters from the story and gave him a son. Re-write are not only good for helping an author develop their style, but it is also good in concretizing Character writing.

3) When beginning original works start small. A new author as a rule of thumb should never try to write a novel, even a dime novel or novella is really too big. Do not count pages. Start with a simple plot and plot theme. Write a beginning, middle, and end. Keep the number of characters limited. Do not try too much too fast, as you become more confident in the short stories start to write longer and longer short stories by going back and expanding short stories that you have already written. Expand their plots, and develop the characters more, complicate the story in gradual phases. Once you are comfortable with your development than write longer short stories from scratch.

4) AFTER writing either a character, a re-write, or a short story go back and look for and correct the flaws. This is more than just simple grammatical editing, this is going back and asking "why did i have the character say and or do this". in the beginning the process is slow, however the more you do this thie faster it will go until you know automatically why you did this or that. This is something which should be done in the beginning.

5) Do not ape. One of the biggest flaw of any new author (and I did it myself) is the attempt to ape another author. For myself I did this with Nietzsche and Shakespear. You are not the author you are trying to ape so don't try to be. To thine own self be true.

Edited by equality72521
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Lol, Michael.

Rembrandt had no students surpass him. Surprise, surprise. Nor did Michelangelo. Now if they had had a genius student that would be different. But you don't make geniuses. I think you are shooting darts in the dark, criticizing her for not having students/fans/friends that would go on to become great fiction writers. On a different thought, a potentially great writer might not want to be in close proximity to her for fear of a too powerful influence. That is a typical thing of potential art rivals. You can't find your own voice if you fall prey to another's universe.

Another difficulty is that Romanticism in the arts is extremely tough to do well. If writing is anything like painting, it takes so many skill sets - any of which can easily sabotage the work if not mastered. Rand was a born writer, chances are that someone who starts late in life won't have mastered all the skills required to do a great work, no matter how much they want it. For example I know a great landscape painter, but his figures are kind of weak, when he does them. I doubt very much that he could attempt a romantic figurative work. So he is wise and paints within himself, and pushes his own envelope.

Michael

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In this particular case I am sure that there are a number of people who will read this thread who understood and knew the difference between earned and unearned guilt. However unfortunately there are also a number of people who call themselves objectivists who really do believe that all guilt is bad.

Guilt is good if you understand it. Guilt is a form of pain. Guilt foisted off on those who don't understand it is bad--on children especially. Physical pain is perceptual pain and can be dealt with in many cases simply reactively. Guilt is conceptual pain and requires thinking to deal with. Pain is information that something is wrong and needs correction. This leads us to differentiation between objective and subjective guilt. Subjective guilt comes out of one's beliefs while objective guilt comes out of what one should believe considering the nature of the human organism. Unearned guilt is subjective. Liberation is objective. Thus Rearden transitioned from Lillian to Galt.

Creativity cannot be encompassed by ideas of how one should write unless they are the author's ideas. He can get exogenous ideas and make them his own but if he's not careful he'll destroy his creativity.

--Brant

Edited by Brant Gaede
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Alan,

I think we are on the same page. You have some very good practical advice there.

As I mentioned some other teachers above and you are stressing character, I want to highlight David Freeman. I think the work of this guy is brilliant for coming up with characters. He started out designing characters for video games. That's a tougher field than it seems, especially getting the emotions and excitement right, but he went on to Hollywood.

I have gotten some things of his from the Internet (interviews and so on) and reading his work on games, but I still have in my plans to do the Beyond Structure screenwriting class.

Here is a very interesting concept based on his work that is available online . It is called a characterization triangle and was written by one of his students: The Characterization Triangle by Connie Flynn. (Beware, this link is a pdf document.)

Objectivists might be uncomfortable with language like "fatal flaw," but the shadow side overcomes it (if you use Flynn's system). Hank Rearden comes to mind as a perfect example of this.

Just this idea alone is a cork popper for Objectivists for a bad case of hardening of the categories that causes much paralysis.

Michael

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Michael,

I stress that I am not criticizing Rand as an artist. I am criticizing her teaching ability. Nor did I claim that her students must surpass her.

Why all this exaggeration?

But leaving aside that there are no writing geniuses who surpassed Rand, where are the normal writers doing just plain old good work? Nonfiction-wise a few could be found in The Objectivist Newsletter and The Objectivist, but what about fiction? Doesn't that thundering silence in the literary world mean anything?

I don't know enough about Rembrandt and Michelangelo to comment on their teaching abilities. I know they were great painters, but would you call them great painting teachers?

The point you made about strong talents avoiding strong personalities like Rand's is very similar to my point above. Apropos, one of the strongest talents Rand had next to her, Ira Levin, moved on pretty quickly. Like his writing or not, I believe he made a good move for himself by going off on his own.

Michael

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Michael,

I stress that I am not criticizing Rand as an artist. I am criticizing her teaching ability. Nor did I claim that her students must surpass her.

Why all this exaggeration?

But leaving aside that there are no writing geniuses who surpassed Rand, where are the normal writers doing just plain old good work? Nonfiction-wise a few could be found in The Objectivist Newsletter and The Objectivist, but what about fiction? Doesn't that thundering silence in the literary world mean anything?

I don't know enough about Rembrandt and Michelangelo to comment on their teaching abilities. I know they were great painters, but would you call them great painting teachers?

The point you made about strong talents avoiding strong personalities like Rand's is very similar to my point above. Apropos, one of the strongest talents Rand had next to her, Ira Levin, moved on pretty quickly. Like his writing or not, I believe he made a good move for himself by going off on his own.

Michael

Everyboody should read "This Perfect Day." "A Kiss Before Dying" was made into a movie here in Tucson in the 1950s. The villian pushed ... never mind--watch this old movie. I remember this old Tucson from my childhood.

--Brant

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MSK:

I don't know enough about Rembrandt and Michelangelo to comment on their teaching abilities. I know they were great painters, but would you call them great painting teachers?

For me, the point is mute. It's awesome to have commentary about the process by a great artist.

where are the normal writers doing just plain old good work?

I would think she had a great influence one many writers, non fiction and fiction: Barbara Branden, N. Branden, Kay Smith, and I would guess many others in her sphere...and all the people who she wouldn't have known but were influenced by her work. I would think it would almost be impossible to calculate, perhaps with the filter of history. Many of the people here are influenced by her style.

The point you made about strong talents avoiding strong personalities like Rand's is very similar to my point above. Apropos, one of the strongest talents Rand had next to her, Ira Levin, moved on pretty quickly. Like his writing or not, I believe he made a good move for himself by going off on his own.

Glad to be on a similar point.

I am criticizing her teaching ability.

Glad not to be on a similar point.

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