Black Gate

The English alphabet contains twenty-six letters. They all have their uses. Some more than others. The letter “E” gets the most use: how could we live without it?

Not easily. But it can be done.

The French Oulipo group advocates experiments that purposely limit the tools in a writer’s toolkit. Most famous of these experiments is the “lipogram,” which excludes particular letters of the alphabet. Of all lipogram experiments, the excision of the letter “E” has caught the most attention. Georges Parec’s 1969 novel La Disparition contains no letter “E” outside of its author’s name. Perhaps more astonishing is that the English translation of the novel, A Void by Gilbert Adair, also contains no occurrence of the letter “E.” Another example, predating the Oulipo group by twenty years, is Ernest Vincent Wright’s novel Gadsby (1939).

So it can be done. But why do it? Shouldn’t writers make use of every piece of available in their arsenal to tell a story, make a point, or convey information?

I believe so. That’s one reason I have defended the semicolon from detractors who want it exiled from fiction. It’s also why I think “e-prime,” writing without the verb “to be,” should not be pushed as a replacement for writing with the verb.

However . . . I love writing exercises. I write every day, and since I’m not always in the middle of a novel or a short story, exercises fill in the gaps. They keep the writing muscles of the brain tones, inspire new ideas, and show writers different paths to expressing themselves.

This weekend, I tackled writing sans the letter “E” for the first time, thinking I would never get far with it. However, I managed to write a 1700-word story — one with a comprehensible plot — in the space of two hours. I present the complete text of “A Ghost’s Claim” below.

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Copyright is a term well known to any author, or artist of any kind, for that matter, but I’ve often been surprised at how many misconceptions there are about this area of law.  Now, here I must insert my usual disclaimer. Even though I am a lawyer, I am inactive in the bar at the moment and thus do not keep on top of every development in statutes and case law. I write this as a general guide, a place for you to get started, but if you have any concerns regarding your copyrights, I always recommend you hire a lawyer who is currently practicing law. That said, let’s discuss copyrights and some basics about how they work.

There are two current developments in the publishing industry that have inspired me to write this post.

1) The rise of the indie author, meaning an author who publishes without using a publisher or agent.

2) The unprecedented growth in e-publishing.

But first a little background.

What Is Copyright?

Copyright is the right you have to exploit your artistic work for commercial gain and exclude others from doing so without a license. It attaches to your work the moment it is “fixed in a tangible medium”. In other words, once you write it down, record it on a CD, or save it to your hard drive, you own the copyright in your work. The term “tangible medium” is dated, because we can’t really touch computer files on a hard drive – or, at least, we shouldn’t try it – but computers and their data storage devices have been around long enough that they are included in this definition. I’ve surprised many people by saying this, though it is nevertheless the truth. All you need to do to own the copyright in your work is create said work.

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