"Norman Spinrad - He Walked Among Us" - читать интересную книгу автора (Spinrad Norman)

тАЬHey, it's not like your career's over, Dex. You've got an established rep as a sci-fi writer with the
proven ability to turn in 100,000 words of solid stuff a year. I've been sniffing around. You get me a
strong outline for a trilogy, preferably fantasy, and I'm sure I can get you a contract for $30,000 a book,
maybe even more if there's game potential in it.тАЭ

тАЬFuck you!тАЭ Dexter snarled and hung up on him.

тАЬFuckyou , Dexter D. Lampkin!тАЭ was Ellie's take on it when he conveyed the gist of the conversation.
тАЬWhat are we going to live on, your Polish serial rights?"

She kept hammering at him. Bills began to pile up. His American Express card got pulled. Dying inside,
Dexter was about to surrender his soul to the inevitable when he ran into Harlan Ellison at a convention in
Phoenix.

Ellison, a Los Angeles scenarist and short story writer who had flourished on a high economic level for
decades, set him straight in no uncertain terms.

тАЬAre younuts , Lampkin, guy with your talent doesn't need that shit, you got to ream out crap to stay
alive, don't piss on the work that really matters to you to do it, and don't sell yourself short. Instead of
writing three hundred pages of sci-fi bullshit and ruining your reputation for $30,000 a pop, come down
to Hollywood and bang out 48 page TV scripts for $15,000 minimum. Buy yourself time to do your real
work and keep it separate from what you do to make the rent."

The Santa Ana ruffled Dexter's hair as he crossed Sunset and drove Laurel Canyon Boulevard up
through the hills. The night was warm, the canyon was heady with vegetal perfume, he kept the tach over
3000 as he whipped through the curves, just to feel those gees, just to hear the double-overhead-cam
engine growl, whoo-ee!

So it hadn't exactly worked out as smoothly as the picture Harlan had paintedтАФprime time TV script
gigs were few and far betweenтАФbut considering the alternatives, Dexter figured he was doing all right.

The Saturday morning cartoon shows were hot for a medium name sf writer like himself accustomed to
writing novellas in the time it took the usual derelicts to write a 30 page script, and while the money was
pretty shitty, it was usually there when needed. There was a certain amount of magazine work, futurology
bullshit he could write in his sleep. Dexter even found that he had a knack for writing album cover blurb,
ad copy, whatever, even gags for third rate comics.

Ellison's advice had rescued Dexter from hackdom. He made enough money via the Scam of the Week
to be able to spend half his time writing his real stuff, without being blocked by the thought that the novels
into which he poured his heart and soul probably wouldn't earn out their mediocre advances.

He was older and wiser enough to know now that most science fiction writers had a book like THE
TRANSFORMATION in them, the visionary masterpiece that would express the full brilliance of their
genius and enlighten the world. He was older and wiser enough to know that most of them were going to
bomb, that those who survived were those who licked their wounds and went on.

He was middle-aged enough these days too to know that the Alfa was an extended hardware metaphor
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