Looks like Neal Stephenson has a substack. From the blog post: Found via Tyler Cowen's interview with Stephenson.
Looks like Neal Stephenson has a substack. From the blog post:
That intermediate zone, where all of the decisions get made, is poorly understood by non-writers. Many published novelists, including myself, have stories about being approached by someone who “has an idea for a book” and who proposes that the writer should actually do all of the writing and then split the proceeds with the idea haver.
Moviemakers and architects, who understand the grammar of their artforms as well as I do that of the English language, must get approached by idea havers all the time. Sometimes they even get sued by idea havers who think, or claim to think, that their idea was stolen.
What idea havers don’t understand is that it’s in the making of all of the microdecisions that the actual work of creation takes place, and that without it the idea might as well not exist. Someone could approach Leonardo da Vinci and say “I have an idea for a picture of a woman sitting in a chair smiling enigmatically” but it would be worthless compared to the finished work, which is realized in the form of countless individual brushstrokes, each reflecting a microdecision on the part of the painter.
Looks like Neal Stephenson has a substack. From the blog post:
Found via Tyler Cowen's interview with Stephenson.