TO THE PEOPLE WHO WROTE ME ABOUT THE SCI FI CHANNEL MINISERIES
I get a fair amount of letters
from readers, and as some of you
know, I try to answer them all.
This doesn't mean what a lot of people think it means — that I have
a secretarial staff of twelve all devoted day and night to answering
my mail. It means this: once or twice a month Delores comes over
with her steno pad and we sit around and after some tea and
snickering, I get out this pile of letters and start dictating
answers. Sometimes I read a really neat letter from a kid out loud,
and sometimes I say "I don't know what to say to this guy!" and
Delores tells me what to say, but usually I can figure out something
myself. Then she types the letters, and I sign and mail them.
This system is not as glamorous as the secretarial staff of twelve,
but it has functioned, more or less, up till now.
One reason it's functioned is that I don't do email with
fans/readers/question-askers, which leaves me some bits of time to
answer written letters in.
But just now I have to use email to answer my letter-writers, because
I'm swamped. If I tried to answer the mail I've been getting, I'd
lose my voice, and Delores would get Carpal Short-hand Tunnel, and
I'd spend all my royalties on postage stamps.
So: Here's my inadequate thanks to you, dear readers, truly dear to
me, for the invaluable support your letters have given me.
It was hard keeping silence for months while I knew how bad the
script was. It was hard watching them spend all that money on PR and
hype, and still keeping silent. It was hard, having seen the thing,
knowing a lot of people were going to tune in to the Sci Fi Channel
that night expecting to see Earthsea...
But I tell you, it was almost worth going through it all, to get
such an outpouring of anger, grief, indignation, outrage, and
sympathy from you ever since.
That a book is a collaborative product of the writer and the reader,
I know is true, seeing you take arms against the Invasion of the
Hollywood Hacks, to defend our Earthsea.
And you understand what even some critics don't: the powerlessness
of the book-writer once the contract is signed. I did get one letter
that said, "If you didn't like the way they did the movie, why did
you sell them the rights?" — which reminds me of the Thurber
cartoon, "Well if it's a wrong number, why did you answer the
telephone?" — But most of you seem to realise that most book-movie
deals are made solely on the basis of promises by the film-makers —
promises which even wellmeaning film-makers may have to betray in
order to get money to fund the production, and which the book-writer
has absolutely no means of enforcing or ensuring. The contract makes
sure of that.
It's time that the standard Hollywood contract is changed.
I've heard the usual advice to the book-writer, "Take the money and
run," all too often. I'm sorry I ever said it myself — it's
sell-out talk. The statement "They didn't wreck my book: there it
is on the bookshelf!" — even that, though proud, is defensive. How
about this, right at the start: "Forget the money up front, forget
the fancy promises, pay me a decent share of the profits from a
decent effort to make my book into a movie, with my participation in
essential decision-making and script approval written into the
contract — then maybe I'll talk to you."
Oh, I can hear the producers screaming like Fay Wray!
Gee, have I just made sure that nobody in Hollywood will ever ask for
the film rights to one of my books again? Gee, am I going to worry a
whole lot about that?
But all you who wrote me: thank you from my heart for standing up for
the books. Thank you for being there when I needed you. Thank you
for proving to me that there is a true community of the book. And
that it counts.
Love,
Ursula
1 January 2005
Copyright © 2005 by Ursula K. Le Guin
|
