Writer/reader links again

Kathy Czepiel on writing first drafts. I’ve never been able to outline in advance, but her tip about thinking of it as clay rather than the sculpture captures a lot of how I feel.
•Joss Whedon said he had trouble writing a Wonder Woman film script because it’s impossible to relate to DC characters (this may be why his film script emphasized Diana as naive and needing to understand humans). Much discussion at the link; I’m inclined to agree that if Superman was so unrelatable, he wouldn’t have had so many movies and TV shows.
I also think that the script sounds kind of a bland discussion of human suffering (of course, a lot of great scripts sound bad in outline)—I think something specifically focused on women would be much more effective. For example, an updated version of the Golden Age Dr. Psycho as the villain, a cult leader preaching against equal rights, would be depressingly timely these days.
•I can have no interest in Twitter (that’s a matter of taste, not meant as a critique of Twitter) but here’s one man who found much to like in promoting his research (link courtesy of Among the Goblins).
•The NYT best-seller list can be rigged. Which isn’t news, actually: Back in the 1990s, it turned out one author’s representative had figured out which book stores the Times surveyed for its list, and then targeted them with bulk purchases.
•Courtesy of my friend M. David Blake, John Scalzi’s take on Random House’s Alibi imprint contract. Saying he is unimpressed would understate the case (but I have to keep my British points up by using understatement now and again). It’s also informative on things to watch for in our own book contracts, when we get some.
•The NYT looks at the complex history of the Sherlock Holmes copyrights, which are valid in America (not in the UK) until 2023. Which is annoying—while I avoided having Holmes in my steampunk Questionable Minds novel, I’ll have to change a couple of supporting characters (the only real difficulty will be not using Col. Sebastian Moran).
Of interest for writers is the passing remark that at one point a British bank owned the copyrights. I’d heard this could happen—if a publisher goes bankrupt, copyrights are just one more asset in the eyes of the court, and can end up being given to creditors with no interest in publishing anything—but this is the first time I’ve read of a case.
Another point of interest, in discussing what happens in 2023, someone comments that Disney has “always been at the leading edge” of intellectual property law.” Which is a euphemistic acknowledgment that any time Mickey Mouse’s copyright is close to expiring, Disney tells Congress to change the law.
•Cristian Mihai on the fear of failure.
•Also courtesy of Among the Goblins, Kevin J. Anderson on the series death spiral: If sales start to slump, bookstores’ will cut orders, so there are fewer copies for anyone to see and it’s often impossible to turn things around and pick up steam.
I’ve read the same problem is true with authors in general: Once sales start to slump, orders drop and it’s assumed he or she is washed-up. It’s not a new problem, but it is exacerbated by chains, where hundreds of stores are yoked to the same policy. It does help if booksellers like your stuff: I kept the first few Anita Blake books on the shelf long after they were supposed to be sent back because I knew they were worth it. I’d like to think hundreds of other salesclerks did the same thing and thereby kept her going until she hit it big (I cannot, however, prove this).