Why did you decide to launch The Dragon Lords through Google Docs?
The CEO of our publishing company is a techie person, he was researching Google Docs for online collaboration and came up with the idea. He dared me to do it. And I said yes ...
Why do you want the reader to participate in the process? What do you think could add to normal way of writing?
No matter what any writer says, they always write for an audience. Else you could be sitting in the garden and daydreaming the whole thing instead, save a lot of time.
If you are a writer, you really really WANT people to read what you have written.
To have people respond as you are writing it connects you much more to your readers.
I am an old fashioned story teller. I tell stories live to audiences all the time and it's a wonderful thing, the story becomes more than the sum of its parts, we all create it together and that's a wonderful feeling.
The very opposite of being the lonely introverted writer slaving away in their dark tower by the sea ...
Doesn’t it influence you when you write? I mean, don’t you feel in some way observed all the time by the readers?
Oh yeah!
A lot of people think this has been done before, but it hasn't. What people have done before is to write something by themselves, as usual, and then post it after the fact.
What I'm doing is having fifty people at a time looking directly over my shoulder and seeing every spelling mistake, any backspace, any time I change my mind, and all the editing, too.
There is a box on the side of the Google document where people give comments and I can see them in the corner of my eye. It's a very strange thing, to be sure. Totally novel, unusual experience for me.
You said to the Guardian: "For example, if I have a character and I love him, and all the readers hate him, I'll probably stick with him. He might be redeemed further down the line, who's to say?”. So, how will readers’ suggestions affect your creative process?
I am hoping it will make a book at the end that I will have loved writing, and the readers will have loved reading all the way. That is ... well, does it get any better for a writer?
Do you already now how long will be the book and how it will end?
I have absolutely NO idea. None. In fact, one of the keys to writing the way I do is to never ever allow myself to even think towards the story when I am not in front of the keyboard. Because if I do, I will run/experience the scene and then later on, the freshness is lost.
The excitement in my writing comes from the fact that neither I, nor the readers, have any idea of "what will happen next."
From past form, I would expect this novel to be between 75,000 and 100,000 words in length and I'm hoping to have the project put to bed within 6-8 weeks at the latest.
How important is Internet in the renewing of the way of promote cultural products (books, discs, movies)? Which are the advantages?
Complete French revolution in action even as we speak. The indie authors are coming! Perfect metaphor, really. Writers and authors have been treated abysmally by the publishing industry since its inception. With the same snooty disregard that the old aristocrats had for the paupers.
I've been celebrating this fact since 1998, when I sold my first e-book, a MS word attachment to an email, to a lady in the USA. FREEDOM!
Are there some disadvantages? Are you afraid for the risk of focusing more on readers and interaction than on the novel itself and its quality?
I am a very experienced author, but also a very experienced public speaker. This is my bread and butter and I'm good at it. I trust that I will entertain the readers and will learn something in the process, and thoroughly enjoy myself along the way.
As to the "quality ..."
Well. I'm sure there will be some people who will find fault with the way I "speak on paper." I am far more interested in communication than in school grammar, or to please some editor for some reason.
I am going to do the very best that I can to write clearly, communicate to the best of my ability and entertain along the way.
I can do no more!
Many artists are creating right now different digital ways of launching their creations. Bjork made a disc with iPod application, some writers put their novels directly and only online, Radiohead ask clients to pay just the money they want for their album, etc. What does all this depend on? Is there some kind of change going on or are just few and different episodes?
It really is that French revolution. Liberte, egalite, fraternite.
First of all, the FREEDOM to create exactly what you want and not have some random guy (at a record company, at a publishing company, and soon enough at a TV company) to tell you what you can and cannot do.
I am an artist and I know what I am doing. I am responsible for what I'm doing. No safety net. As a grown up human being, that's how it should be.
Secondly, EQUALITY.
Artists across the board are fed up with being second best, being controlled, the whole hierarchical thing of the old fashioned publishing businesses. They also don't think themselves as "better" than their audiences, that is so, so important.
We are all people together, and the more of us share our creativity with each other, the better the whole world will be. I believe that absolutely. Instead of one or two voices "defining a century" we now have MILLIONS OF VOICES. Awesome!
Finally, FRATERNITY. Brotherhood. Authors and writers working together to help publish and promote each other. Fans helping to sell their favourite artist's things through social networking. Artists and fans working together to create works of art the world has never seen.
It's awesome. We're right in the middle of a revolution that is far more wide reaching than Gutenberg with his printing press. It's a good time to be an artist on this planet.
Silvia Hartmann
http://silviahartmann.com/live/
Note:
For more information about The Dragon Lords / The Naked Writer Project see:
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