“POTATO MOON” Rising

Well, she’s at it again, and this time, I’m going to have some fun.

Several months ago a fan whose name I’m not even going to bother to mention declared she was going to write and publish her own sequel to “Twilight” entitled “Russet Noon.” Recently she has put forward a new treatise explaining just why copyright is meaningless. The reason is—get this—“The origin of all characters is the Shared Mind, the only mind that truly exists. Our minds are all one single ocean of shared memories, fantasies, dreams, nightmares and visions.”

Citing Edward Cullen, Harry Potter and Anakin Skywalker as examples of characters who are merely “plugged in” to archetypes and thus have no originality and therefore no entitlement to legal protection, she goes on to assert, “Laws that attempt to privatize the ownership of characters operate based on a delusion of separateness that we all share in this matrix we call reality. But according to Eckart Tolle, author of The Power of Now, there is no such a thing as separate minds. There is only one Universal Mind and it is the source of all our thoughts.”

You can read the rest of this New Age tripe here if you’re so inclined.

Now the first thing that occurred to me is that there is simply no way that I’m taking any part of the rap for Jar Jar Binks. And then I thought, Y’know what? There is, in fact, a universal mind. A hive mind, if you will. It’s called the Internet.

So let’s unleash the hive on the concept of a sequel to the “Twilight” series.

This is going to be entirely satirical, and thus legitimately protected by copyright. In honor of the woman who has inspired this, the title will be “Potato Moon” (since when I hear russet I tend to think of spuds rather than the color.) The first chapter will be written by my daughter, “Twilight” fan Ariel David (with a slightly snarky polish by me.) Just as its inspiration is supposed to be, it will be a sequel to “Twilight” written from the point of view of the werewolf character (at least to start out). The cover (created by Glenn) will be posted on line on Wednesday to whet your appetite and the first chapter will go live Friday at 9 AM. And everyone and anyone is invited to participate in the ensuing round robin.

Here are the rules:

1) If you wish to participate, send an e-mail saying, “I want in!” to an account I’ve set up just for this: peterallendavid_at_gmail.com . Participation will be strictly on a first come, first served basis. When it’s your turn to present your entry, I will contact you and you will have twenty-four hours to send it in. If you’re unable to participate in that 24 hour period, your name will be dropped to the end of the list.

2) Submissions must be between two hundred and five hundred words. No strong profanity (hëll and dámņ are acceptable) and no explicit sex.

3) This is basically improv. In improv, you must build upon what’s gone before and leave something for someone else to build upon. No fair suddenly saying, “Meanwhile, in Europe, a small boy was born” and go off on a complete tangent that has nothing to do with anything. No killing off someone else’s characters; you can introduce and knock off your own, but that’s it. You can end with characters endangered in a cliffhanger, but you don’t get to say, “And then the sun went nova, The End.”

4) Chapters will not be edited beyond the parameters of what I’ve outlined above. I reserve the right to reject your submission as a whole if it does not follow the rules.

5) All names are to be changed to protect the innocent and respect the copyright. “Jacob” is going to be “Jakob.” “Bella” will be “Bela.” “Edward” will be “Edwood” (like that one? My idea.) If you introduce new characters who are parodies of other Stephenie Meyer characters…or for that matter anyone else’s characters…names must be changed. So if you want to see Edwood whipped by Fluffy the Vampire Flayer, this is the place to do it.

6) This will go on for as long as there seems to be a good deal of interest. Ariel and I will write the final chapter whenever we decide it’s time to end it.

7) This is a 100% not-for-profit venture. I personally am never going to publish this as a single collection. The individual submissions remain the property of the individual writers. However if, when this thing is done, I am approached by a publisher who wants to produce it as a not-for-profit collection with 100% of all monies collected donated to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, I reserve the right to make that deal. (I was originally just going to say, “This will never be published ever,” but I just know people were then going to say, “But wouldn’t it be great for a charity thing?” So I’m leaving myself that option. If you don’t want to participate because of that, I totally understand.)

8) Knowledge of, or familiarity with, “Twilight” is not only unnecessary, but lack of knowledge is probably preferable. If, on the other hand, you want to do some research, and can’t bring yourself to read them, you can go here.

So get ready. Friday at 9 AM, “Potato Moon” will rise.

PAD

87 comments on ““POTATO MOON” Rising

  1. I’ve been sending these stories to my copyright law professor and we’ve been discussing it in class. It works as a pretty good example of how many people have no idea what they are talking about when it comes to copyright.

  2. I have to get in on this.

    Sidenote: As a people greeter at Walmart, one of my duties is to scan merchandise that customers are returning/exchanging. The day after the Twilight DVD was released, I counted six people bringing their copies back. I’ve no reason to read the book or watch the movie; there’s just something about the whole thing that makes me feel….I dunno, oogy.

  3. Oh how I wish I didn’t have my dissertation to work on. Maybe I’ll “reward” myself for getting dissert work done by writing a chapter here…

  4. If the Universal Mind helped her write Russet Moon, and I am part of the Universal Mind, then where do I go for my cut of the profits?

  5. We are the Shared Mind. We will add your distinctiveness to our own. Attempts to destroy the Shared Mind (ex. ‘Batman and Robin’) are futile.

  6. I think “Universal mind” was originally proposed by Plato, so it’s not exactly “new”. Though I suppose the originality comes from the relation of stock characters and environment… the characters itself weren’t very original, after all. Edward, as I understand, is the very definition of vampire pretty boy and used in dozens of published books.

    I think the problem of author-whom-we-shall-not-mention is her insistence of using names. Wasn’t that one of the reasons why Alice Randall’s “The Wind Done Gone” (which was Gone With The Wind from other perspective) got published in the first place?

  7. It really says something about how much I hate wilful ignorance, when I find myself on the side of lawyers.

  8. Wait… if this lady is really as connected to the Akashic Records as the rest of us are, then she’s obviously polluting them for the rest of us! 🙁

  9. Geez, you let a person take one psych 101 class and read about Carl Jung, and suddenly she’s an expert on the collective unconscious and copyright…

  10. I went to the link you gave, Peter, and there’s nothing there. Perhaps a Cease and Desist order kicking in?

  11. BAd best selling sci-fi/fantasy novelist and comic book writer!!!!BAD!!!! Do you want a time out? It isn’t nice to pick on deluded parental basement dwellers with no original artistic or creative talents!! ;D

    Goddess I hope I’m near a wifi portal for this!!!

  12. You know the saying about there only being 12 plot lines in all of literature?
    I wonder if I can copyright them and then get a royalty from everything ever published?
    BTW, I’ve copyrighted this idea, so don’t try to steal it.

  13. It’d be great if you could send us an email to confirm if you got our email.

    1. I actually did that in the case of the first person who wrote in, and then it promptly moved him in the queue order. It’s much easier for me to keep track of the running order if I don’t click on them. However, if you’re really concerned, you can ask here. And yes, Matt, I got your e-mail.
      .
      PAD

      1. Ah, so everyone who e-mails is automatically in the round robin?
        Cool.
        I was afraid you’d have some sort of talent or ability requirement that would disqualify me.
        I know the number is growing even as we type, but roughly how many am us?

  14. Shared mind. I’m no big city lawyer, but that sounds like a good defense to me for the inevitable trial. I can picture this person (dressed as princess leia like on 30 rock) saying to the jury, “Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.”

  15. Many years ago, when Paramount was hassling writers of Star Trek fanfic, and said facficters were bìŧçhìņg asnd moaning about not being about to use someone else’s property, a friend and I had this idea for a “solution.” Create an “open source” version called “X-Trek,” an outline for a “space adventure” situation wherein people could write stories and technical manuals and art and whatever the hëll _else_ they wanted to do… as long as no money changed hands. We even thought of issuing an automated search-and-replace program to convert _Star Trek_ fan fiction to the new template.

    The point wasn’t to be nice to the fans, or even to do this seriously. It was satire. It was satisfyingly nasty to reduce _Star Trek_ to a _template_, like a _Dungeons and Dragons_ packet. As for fanfic, the point was to say that fanficters weren’t even imaginative enough to imagine a _cheap knockoff_ of _Star Trek_ that they could use without copyright issues. And if they weren’t willing to move their efforts from the Corporate Product Poaching Grounds, then clearly the issue wasn’t their own expression of creativity, but their use of successful copyrighted material.

    1. Hmmm.
      .
      I just flashed on the idea of Galaxy Quest fan fiction.
      .The original series, not the movie.

  16. Wonderful idea. I’d congratulate and thank you, but as part of the same giant shared mind we of course came up with this idea together.

    (Now if I could just get all the other members of this shared mind to take responsibility for their portion of my — excuse me, “our” — credit card debt…..)

  17. Are the contributors going to try to suck, mimicking the style of the author or the fan-fic writer?

    Or are we aiming at proper satire here?

  18. You, sir, are a soooopah geeeenius. Twenty internets shall be deposited into your account.

  19. As has been said… the concept of the Universal Mind is not new by any means… neither is the concept of the Universal Hero and other archtypes. Something else which isn’t new is some idiot’s ego-based pomosity in asserting that they have the ‘right’ to cream off another person’s hard work. There *are* no new themes or stories… what is new and unique is a person’s personal interpretation and expression of them, and *that* is what copyright protects.

  20. Common sense and a love of the quiet life are both telling me to keep my big mouth shut here, but since when did I ever listen to either of those?

    Lady Sybilla is either a stunningly incompetent exploiter of other people’s success, or a person with some serious issues about expressing her creative spark. I really don’t see any appeal in either giving her more press or in pointing the spotlight at a “hairy angel” who this time can’t sing but still won’t get off the stage.

    Twilight and Stephenie Meyer may or may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I don’t think that quite justifies the glee there seems to be in here for the prospect of slapping her around with a pastiche pistache of what she’s done. Good humour/satire seems to me to require at least some degree of respect and/or affection for the target, otherwise you’re just stoning a stray dog…

    Count me out for this one.

    Cheers.

    1. I would have been happy to count a lack of saying “I’m in” as your being out. Plus there are far larger issues of copyright infringement being addressed here that have been the subject of this blog over recent months. But if endeavoring to rain on the parade makes you feel better, then I’m glad you got it off your chest.
      .
      PAD

      1. Common sense indicates that if voicing a probably unpopular but sincerely held minority opinion that disagrees with yours equates to ‘endeavouring to rain on the parade’ then I’ll plead guilty.

        Common courtesy to the host of this particular party suggests I quit at this point rather than argue further.

        Cheers.

      2. I don’t think you’re ‘endeavouring to rain on the parade’ because you’re voicing an unpopular opinion. I think you’re ‘endeavouring to rain on the parade’ because we’re getting ready to do something fun and you’re discouraging it. Which is pretty much the direct meaning of phrase “rain on the parade.”
        .
        You have a right to your opinion and you’re being a buzzkill. You’re both respectable in your beliefs and a total downer.
        .
        But drop the moral superiority routine. You don’t have to start every post with a woe-is-me routine and you don’t have to act like you’re being victimized for your beliefs.

    2. Lady Sybilla is either a stunningly incompetent exploiter of other people’s success, or a person with some serious issues about expressing her creative spark.
      .
      Or she’s just plain nuts, which is just as likely as any other explanation at this point.

      1. <blockquote

        Lady Sybilla is either a stunningly incompetent exploiter of other people’s success, or a person with some serious issues about expressing her creative spark.

        .
        Or she’s just plain nuts, which is just as likely as any other explanation at this point.
        .
        One supposes that the OP’s second possibility is a slightly morfe diplomatic way of stating much the same position.

      2. One supposes that the OP’s second possibility is a slightly morfe diplomatic way of stating much the same position.
        .
        I guess that’s just not how I read Peter’s comment when I went to make my response. 🙂

    3. “Good humour/satire seems to me to require at least some degree of respect and/or affection for the target.”

      Don’t buy that argument in the least. I’ve seen fantastic satire on The Simpsons and South Park and there ain’t no bleeding way that they have any respect or affection for their subjects. Just listen to the commentaries on the South Park sets. Some of the things they’re satirizing Stone and Parker obviously downright loathe, but they still make a great parody of it. I have no idea why to satire something you’d have to respect it in the least.

    4. “Good humour/satire seems to me to require at least some degree of respect and/or affection for the target, otherwise you’re just stoning a stray dog…”
      .
      So… You’re saying that Mel Brooks had “some degree of respect and/or affection” for Hitler, the Nazi Party and racists? Okay, if you say so.

      1. No, you’re saying that Mel Brooks’ work regarding Hitler, the Nazi Party and racists constitutes ‘good humour/satire’. Or possibly that some stray dogs really really do deserve stoning. Or thst Stephanie whatserface has actually channelled Mein Kampf into the subtext of the Twiglet books.

        “getting ready to have some fun”. Ah, the Scans Daily defence rises again. How foolish of me to suspect that unleashing the hive mind of the internet could possibly get out of hand.

        “Or that she’s just plain nuts” Well, hëll, if that’s the case then clearly the bìŧçh deserves everything she gets!

        ‘moral superiority’… Tough one. Say rather that I’ve both given and received enough mockery, ridicule and abuse over the years to respect how hurtful they can be, and to advocate avoiding wherever possible.

        Really going to try shutting up now. Enjoy your parade.

        Cheers.

    5. I’m not taking this project as a way to “slap around” Ms. Meyer, no matter how you feel about her work… I’m taking it as a very creative way to let this “Lady Sybilla” know that it’s NOT OK to infringe on another creator’s rights.

      Am I missing the point?

      1. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just too thick to see what or where the point is supposed to be on this one.

        I do have reservations on whether or not Lady S will get the point you specify though, she doesn’t seem like a girl who’s big on irony or subtlety.

        Frankly, if you do a round-robin parody on Twiglet I could well see her getting links to the project on her page showing how many people agree with her take on copyrights, as led by the man who re-imagined Peter Pan so successfully. (Whoa, yes, I know the crucial differences, stop reaching for the cattle prods!)

        A generalised collection of the kinds of tripe that could be produced if her view of coyright law were correct might actually be more on target…

        For the record, my feelings for Ms Meyer’s work are pretty neutral. I’d have the same humanitarian issues if you wanted to nuke Mercedes Lackey or any other fan-ficcer made good.

        Cheers.

  21. I’ve never read Twilight. Nor have I seen the movie. Nor do I ever intend to do either. But I still wanted in, and thus just sent an e-mail!

    I just hope I’m far enough down the list that there’s ample story for me to feed off of!

    Never thought little ol’ me (whose writing is mainly bad fan fiction, anyway!) would have a chance to colaborate with my favourite living author, the great PAD!

  22. I don’t suppose the unnamed fan thinks it at all contradictory that if Tolle really believes that the Universal Mind nullifies the concept of copyright, he wouldn’t carry prominent copyright notices on the book or his webpage?

    I sincerely wish I could participate in this project, but I think I’ll act as a spectator in my few free moments over the next few weeks. Little League season started Saturday, and neither of my kids give a rodent’s posterior for Twilight in any of its forms. Good luck with the project.

    1. I went to his website and didn’t see any copyright notices other than on interviews done with him by other people. But a quick check on Amazon shows standard copyright pages for his books.
      .
      PAD

  23. I have neither read the books nor seen the movie, but I’m tempted to take a shot at this anyway. If I’m far enough down the list, I might be able to pull it off…

  24. This is the sort of thing that gets my creative bug to start working.

    I actually was inspired by fanfiction earlier this week. A friend of mine created a music track of himself reading aloud some Sonic fanfiction, and it gave me an idea of writing a sort of crushing reality of an odd (but common) fanfic pairing, something that takes place a couple years down the line when the couple is miserable with each other. I was telling my boyfriend about this (largely because, coincidentally, he was playing a Sonic game at the time) and he made some comment about fanfiction being bad. I pointed at my bookshelf, the top shelf of which is almost entirely Trek novels and he conceded that it is indeed possible for a person to write good works based on an idea that isn’t their own.

  25. Hmmm… Maybe she should tell George Lucas his “copyright” to Anakin Skywalker is meaningless. I think he’d find it hilarious, and I’m sure it’d pass without incident… 🙂

    1. Or Mickey Mouse, while you’re on the subject. Disney is also very good at letting this stuff go..

  26. You are an evil, evil man. I LOVE it. I can’t write a lick, but I’ve forwarded the prospect to all of my writer buddies.

    Let the evil commence!

  27. AT THIS POINT, I am believing this is not a woman writing all this crap.
    .
    AND I AM also believing that this is just a troll seeking acknowledgment.

  28. With the lead character being called “Edwood” I suddenly visualize our Bela speaking with an Elmer Fudd speech impediment.

  29. You know…I don’t think I ever did anything this cool with my dad when I was 17.

  30. OMG! Twilight ORLY? NaoWAI?!?!

    No, PAD/everyone, here is your spoof idea:
    There were three things I knew about Edward

    1) He was totally hot
    2) He was a zombie
    3) He wanted to eat my brains.
    (An excerpt from my hit novel—Butt-crack of Dawn—yeah zombie romance, I’m a genius).

    Basically if I didn’t have a life already I would take this book that Stephenie Meyers wrote and just imput zombie for vampire and anything that Edward says would be replaced with zombie moans. But at my level, devoting myself to such uselessness would only be fruitless and I am already swamped as it is. At any rate I want to sign up for this even though writing it from Jacob’s pov would be down right difficult. Apparently he only says the word yeah according to people who actually suffered and read these books.

    http://stoney321.livejournal.com/317176.html#cutid1
    http://stoney321.livejournal.com/335836.html#cutid1
    http://bûŧŧfáçëmákáņ&#236;.livejournal.com/281619.html#cutid1
    http://bûŧŧfáçëmákáņ&#236;.livejournal.com/280913.html

    ^Those right there are freaking hilarious^
    Entertainment Weekly told me this was the next Harry Potter before the release of the last book. I went to walmart to see if it was, I seriously tried to read the first couple pages but I got so bored. Entertainment Weekly pretty much dumped Twilight on its rump after Breaking Dawn was released.

  31. I really don’t know the first thing about the movie or books beyond what I’ve seen in the TV spots and been told by unlucky male friends (90210: The Vampire Years) who were dragged to the thing by their significant others. Too bad. It sounds like a fun project.
    .
    Other than that…
    .
    Has anyone thought to ask this nitwit whether or not she thinks that, since there is no true ownership as it’s all from the group mind, she’d be in favor of giving away the work to her follow co-creators rather than selling it or giving us all a debit card linked to her bank account since we’re all apparently writing this thing with her?
    .
    I’d love to see her answers to that.

    1. In Pogo, many years ago (in a strip selected by editor Judith Merrill to be reprinted in that year’s “Best SF” collection), a cat said to Rackety Coon Chile that Bun Rabbit said that cats who stare fixedly don’t know what they is staring at.
      .
      “That is a lot of rabbit talk.” says the cat, continuing to give us the thousand yard stare. “Cats can see into the future – to a time when there won’t be no wars; when no man won’t raise his hand against no other man…” (Rackety Coon Chile, meanwhile is squinting and shading his eyes and looking futilely in the same direction, and mutters “Man, you got twenty-twenty.”)
      .
      RCC then asks the cat, “Does you also see a time when no cat won’t kill no mouse or little bird?”
      .
      And the cat, slit-eyed in offense, stalks away, muttering “That, sir, is an entirely different and personal matter.”

  32. Some people will Never Get It. Check out this exchange of comments on ZDNet (summaries of content by YHOS, not the original authors):

    Copyright is theft; all creative material belongs to Da Peeple!
    Well, actually I read some copyright law recently and you’re wrong.
    You don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m a fanboy and I know better…

    Does any of this sound familiar? (He asked innocently, studiously not glancing in the direction of the scans_daily thread[s].)

  33. Would that I had any ideas to take off on this from. Sadly, in order to participate, I’d have to have some idea what the books were like, and from what I’ve seen in articles and such, I doubt I’d make it through more than about a chapter before launching the book in disgust across the room.
    .
    That being said, however, perhaps someone can draw inspiration from a Motivational Poster on TelevisionWithoutPity.com. It features a shot of Hugh Jackman as Van Helsing, from the eponymous movie, holding his big fancy automatic crossbow, with the caption, “SPARKLING: Making vampires easier to target since 2008!”

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