Call for Prompts

 thebonesofferalletters is holding a prompt call for icons.  Get one of your character(s).  Tipping is welcome but not required.

Gittip Problems

Well, this is irritating.  Gittip is a platform that enables small weekly payments, explicitly aimed at helping people pay bills because bills are regular and thus benefit from regular income.  Trouble is, the folks behind the platform are unsupportive in ways that make it hostile to women and minorities.  *headdesk*

Publishing in Crisis

 ... is business as usual.  But this essay takes a wonderful look at why publishers often suck and why people are less interested in buying their books these days.

Poem: "First Steps"

This poem came out of the June 17, 2014 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from Helga and LJ user Lb_lee. It also fills the "rituals, customs & rites of passage" square in my 6-10-14 card for the fanbingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by Anthony & Shirley Barrette. It belongs to the series Frankenstein's Family.

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Refilling the Public Domain

I thought of an idea that would help refill the public domain, which is impoverished today because modern copyright rarely lets anything into common use.  Someone -- any sufficiently wealthy person, or a conglomeration of folks -- could buy intellectual properties and then declare them in the public domain.  

Rights to characters, novels, comic books, films, etc. change hands all the time.  Some are only partial rights, but other times all rights are for sale and that's what would be useful here.  Similarly some are expensive, but many are rather cheap and would be readily accessible.  People who decide to sell off their intellectual property may be seeking to have it developed, but frequently they just want to get one last bit of money out of something they don't consider very useful.

Look at minor comic book characters, for example, or campy movies; there is often much potential for further development that is unrealized in the original canon but easily accessed through fanworks.  Now imagine how much more awesome this would be if those works could be subsequent canon rather than fanworks.  

Continuing the idea, crowdfunders might also commission things for the public domain.  Some crowdfunding projects are open-source like Schrodinger's Heroes, licensed through Creative Commons like nineforthenebulasheart, or otherwise available for people to share.  When things are shared instead of hoarded, this tends to make more goodies for everyone to enjoy.

Call for Prompts

 magistrate is hosting a call for prompts.  There is no theme, so anything goes, although there is also a bingo card in case you want a starting point.  Prompts lead to ficlets, often random snippets.  Donating $10 gets you 500+ words of coherent scene for a prompt of your choice.

Awesomely, the materials produced in this call will go into the author's Shared Worlds project, intended to produce an archive of materials that other folks can use for inspiration and further development.  Consequently I prompted for broad setting elements that would lend themselves well to creating worlds interesting to write about.  Go ask for something that you'd love to see put up for common use.  Society relies on a thriving public domain to inspire cultural materials.

Read "The Same Roots" by Magistrate

magistrate has written some snippets about a world in which magic and compassion have the same roots, based on my prompt. 

Read "The Lee Side, a Generation On" by Magistrate

 magistrate has written "The Lee Side, a Generation On" based on my prompt about a gamma ray burst.  See snippets of what was lost or saved.

Batman + The Watchmen =

 ... do not read with your mouth full.

My favorite part was the "!"  ... until I reached the underwear line.