kawaiidaigakusei wrote:
Is your novel written in English or in Dutch? When it is all complete will you make and audio version? It would be interesting to hear, regardless of the language.
I'm writing in Dutch, which is a big change from most of my short stories and the like. I decided that I would be taken more seriously as a writer if I actually wrote in the language of my own country.
The possibility of an Audio version would have to be up to the publishers. I'm not going to self-publish anything. I'm just hoping that I'm sellable enough to be accepted by one of the publishing houses in the Netherlands, and that I'm good enough to actually be liked by an ever declining group of readers.
In my ideal world, everything I write would be published in multiple languages. A few publishers worldwide bring the books to the masses, but only the German, Dutch, Italian and English versions are really read.
That would then lead to a few people at the BBC that love my stuff, and want to make an English television series about it. I'd accept, but have a few requests, and eventually I'd collaborate with them, and put out about three seasons and a movie. Of course, that would end up being even more popular in the states than in the UK, but by that time nothing that American Networks do is even slightly relevant anymore. They'd buy the rights to a show of their own, and give me enough money to be okay with any bad decisions they inevitably make.
The show turns out to be quite good, and improves over a number of seasons, until eventually it ends with a climactic cliffhanger. The entire world is over me by that time, mostly because I am seen as a sell-out. I write a few more books, more for myself than anyone else, and eventually go into video games, where I really find my medium. I work on a few of the best videogame series ever made, finally making people accept the medium as an artform, but stay in the background, keeping my name away from the press.
I retire at an age that is much too young, and I am unhappy with the freedom I have gained. For years I'm trapped in an ever-speeding downward spiral of drugs and sex and alcohol. My family abandons me, and my friends have no way they can help me, until finally I almost die because of an overdose. In the hospital I begin writing again. My health keeps falling, and that fear, and pain, and sadness all bleeds into the words that I write. I finish the final page on the same day that I die. My burial gets very little attention, and my grave has no visitors for years.
One of my best friends, the only one that still visited me in the end, decides to get my final book published. It is a long and difficult process, because the publishing world does not believe that I wrote it, and does not want much to do with it if I did. Eventually a small publishing house picks it up and does a hundred copy run. And then another. And then finds out that they can not print the book fast enough for the demand. The book touches the people, somewhere in their souls, and they can never forget the message it carries.
World leaders and giant corporations begin to feel fear, and for the first time in the history of mankind it becomes apparent to everyone that the meek will indeed inherit the earth. Society crumbles and is rebuilt. Man and woman, black and white, everyone is equal in every way, and they all work together to achieve their full potential. My name is remembered for a few hundred years, until eventually only my message is remembered, and brought with mankind into the stars. My bones turn to ash, and my planet burns, but my words will reach the ends of time.
And yes, eventually, there will be an audiobook version, but it will cost way too much, and people will not really like the actor reading the words, because he pronounces S's, T's, and F's too much and it is anoying to listen to.
- - -
I hate all the newscoverage of terrible disasters, and dangerous terrorist threats. It just seems like that is the only way that networks can still get people to watch. And I´ve read Orwell, I know the underlying danger that government involvement poses. The forced feelings of fear and anger do not really make it all the way to the Netherlands, but I can see how the world is becoming a worse place everywhere else. Of course the Netherlands are in a small way also affected, but our government does not really have the power to change things in the same way that many other governments can. They can send a few soldiers overseas, but because we are a smaller country it would not make sense to put our people on the front lines. Of course they can monitor our communications, but it would mostly be about the weather, and whether or not some football team would win their match next week or not.
It doesn´t really seem to me that there is more danger in the world than before 9-11, but less. And I hate that. The world is no longer as interesting as I grew up believing it to be. Because we have less freedom, and less options to do something dangerous to ourselves or others, any decision we make has less value. If murder is not on the table, then choosing not to murder has no moral value at all.
We can´t bring toothpaste to another country, and we can´t go out into the street without our name on a card, printed and laminated somewhere in one of our pockets. Freedom of speech is no longer a thing, and freedom of religion is only true as long as we do not talk about it.
Sorry about the stream of consciousness there, I get really angry about that kind of stuff, but I don't have the necessary eloquence to actually write a coherent piece about it.
