You're saying being paid to do what you love is always better, but that's not always true.

It's been known to ruin what you love, in fact. I love writing fiction. I write non-fiction for work, on deadlines. If I were to be paid to write fiction, on deadlines, I suspect I would rapidly grow to hate writing fiction, because part of what makes it fun is that there are no deadlines, and I'm free to fully indulge my writerly desires without worrying about marketability or anything else.

The point I was trying to make, David, and which I suspect you just glossed over, was that the language you were using implied a hierarchy in which the paying artist is superior, in some absolute and objective way, to the non-artist and the non-paying artist.

I'm glad you were not stating that, but I was hardly alone in my interpretation. Qualifiers can clutter up the text, but they can also be really useful for not pissing off your audience. Unless, of course, that was your intention: certainly we had a lively discussion here.

I had a science teacher in high school who was a Jazz Trombonist. He was really, really good and probably could have had a paying career. He played in local bands, and directed the Jazz Band and our musical pit band. One time I asked him why he didn't pursue a career as a musician, and he said that as soon as he started trying to make his living at it, it became a job, and he lost a lot of his passion for music. And he loved science, too, and teaching. So he felt he had a really perfect and fulfilling life and was a happier artist being non pro

If I were to be paid to write fiction, on deadlines, I suspect I would rapidly grow to hate writing fiction

Or you wind up writing something you're not proud of. Cold Kiss was a great experience for me, and meant a lot to me, while Glass Heart was something they told me to write. And honestly, I was done with those characters when Cold Kiss ended. So even though I think I did a serviceable job with Glass Heart, it's not something I feel really proud of me, and it certainly doesn't mean as much as me, leaving out the money I was paid to do it.

This sounds like the whole -- turn your passion into your career! or Only do work you are passionate about! career advice that pops on personal finance blogs occasionally.

Which totally ignores that 1) some people don't want their passion to be their career and 2) sometimes doing something else allows you to better explore your passion.

At the Association I worked for the CFO's passion was archaeology. He told me he originally was going to make a career out of it but then looked at the realities of what it would mean long term and decided he was also good with number so he went into finance.

He makes a great salary, he travels, has volunteered on digs, and has money to collect ancient coins and other stuff he likes.

Which totally ignores that 1) some people don't want their passion to be their career and 2) sometimes doing something else allows you to better explore your passion.

More importantly, to my mind, it ignores that there are jobs which need doing that don't ignite people's passions to an extent sufficient to see them done.

I recall seeing some recent research that found pursuing your dreams is actually pretty poor career advice. People don't really have a good picture of what a career will be like until they do it; and job satisfaction is less correlated with following your passion than it is with the conditions under which you work and the people with which you work. (Don't remember where I saw it though, so grain of salt.)

Back to the VM Kickstarter thing, Joss puts his two cents in:

[link]

Quick sum up: "More Veronica Mars! Awesome! More Firefly? Not happening anytime soon."

This is so Sunday in the Park with George.

Thank you Kalshane. I am the last person to be a thread nanny, but as fascinating as this discussion has been (and to put my two cents out there I love Amanda Palmer but I think she often talks before she thinks) I was wondering what happened to the movie thread. You just reminded me how we got on this particular tangent.

Exclusive: 'Veronica Mars' creator Rob Thomas on the wildly successful Kickstarter movie campaign.

It's a good read.

There was a real internal debate, for me, about what kind of movie I wanted to make. Just by way of example, I really enjoyed "Side Effects," and that sort of noir thriller that I could see Kristen Bell as Veronica Mars in something like that. I liked the plotting of that movie. I had some desire, as a filmmaker, to take Veronica in a slightly new direction and do something adventurous with her. Or, there's the "give the people what they want" version. And I think partly because it's crowd-sourced, I'm going with the "give the people what they want" version. It's going to be Veronica being Veronica, and the characters you know and love. Certainly, I think I can make a fun, great movie out of that, and I'm excited about that, but it was a creative debate I had with myself, and I finally made the decision that I'm happy with it, to go with, "Let's not piss people off who all donated. Let's give them the stuff that I think that they want in the movie."

I hope fanservice doesn't get in the way of the story. I would have liked to see a "cool noir thriller"! Oh, Rob, such a Soderbergh fan. He took some inspiration from Bubble for season three.

I'm glad he's going fan-friendly with his fan-sponsored movie.

And hey, in a perfect world the movie makes a kajillion dollars and he can make another one that's a dark noir thing.

Frank- I wasn't trying to derail the discussion (though I admit I started skimming after the first 50 posts) so much as give us something additional to talk about for those so inclined. I just didn't really have anything to add to that debate that wasn't already said, and hey, Joss said something relevant.