William writes: > There's no reason for Cheerskep to envy the artist because the artist has > sketches and studies to sell along with the developed final work. These > peripheral works are often in other media and thus are stand alone works. > Furthermore, they don't really constitute mistakes or faulty, incomplete > efforts as a writer's or musician's initial or preparatory often are. > William makes some interesting points there. Certainly there's an essential difference between the often-excellent preliminary sketches by Michelangelo or Leonardo and the discarded early versions of a playwright or novelist. Often what the writer discards was indeed faulty. But not always, in this sense: A scene or character or subplot may be adequately done, even well-done, but eventually prove to be redundant or irrelevant. The writer can feel a pang as he deletes it, knowing it's not salable, as an artist's sketch might be.
(As I think about it, a writer CAN turn a dollar from stuff that usually ends up on his cutting-room floor. Back in my 20s I was deputed by my boss at Doubleday to accompany Robert Graves who was flying to Buffalo. Graves was selling his "memorabilia" to the university library, and there was to be a little ceremony. On the plane, Graves remarked to me, "I can't imagine what they want all this rubbish for. Still, they're paying excessive money for it, so I'm happy enough.") William makes the good point that any scrap by a hugely well-respected artist might be sold, but not scraps by non-famous painters. Still, I'd claim that any journeyman artist, good at his/her particular specialty, can do something the writer can't: She can paint the same (say) flower again and again, and sell each version. I meant to mount no great whine about the plight of the writer. As I mentioned in my last posting, each side has advantages. And I'll always recall the lament one artist uttered to me decades ago, and it's something a writer is not prey to: "The terrible thing," he said, "is when you're selling a painting to someone who lives far away, and you know you'll never see it again." The nearest thing to that experience that a writer ever has may be on the closing night of a stageplay. Sure, you can always reread your script, but you'll never "see" it again unless someone again mounts it live. (To answer a reasonable question: No, the playwright is not allowed to film his own play without a whole lot of paperwork. And even then he's required to get the permission of everyone in the cast.)
