PLEDGE DRIVE

by James Lincoln Warren

About a week and a half ago, Rob wrote about reading tie-in books related to television series. An auspicious topic, for without the advent of the tie-in novel1, a great organization would never have come into being. You might think that I am referring to the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers, or IAMTW (“I AM a Tie-in Writer!” their website proudly proclaims), founded three years ago by Lee Goldberg and Max Allan Collins, but you’d be wrong, or at most, obliquely correct. No, my friends, I am not talking about IAMTW, but a far more inclusive (by which I mean non-discriminatory, in the sense that we lack any sense of discrimination whatsoever) organization, the Professional Hack Authors RecogniTion Society, or PHARTS, phounded by James Lincoln Warren and Paul Guyot.

How did the tie-in novel bring about such a gathering of great wordsmithy? Glad you asked.

When Lee originally announced the formation of IAMTW, a lot of folks out there thought it was a joke. They reasoned that the entire concept of an organization devoted to writers who take on such projects purely for the paycheck only could not possibly be serious. But they were wrong. Lee made the claim that he always brought his best game to tie-in projects, and that he wrote as seriously for them as for his “original” fiction. He thought that tie-in writers were not getting any respect, that THEY, and not nonfiction writers as John has suggested, are the true Rodney Dangerfields of the writing community. IAMTW was created to counter that perception. 2 But by demanding respect, Lee and Al had obviously left a serious void in the ranks of writers organizations.

So Guyot and I rushed in where angels fear to tread, to provide an organization that truly was a joke, but which was also dedicated to getting the check. PHARTS was born, the first writers group for dedicated hacks.3 (How about our nifty new seal, folks? Guyot and I worked very hard to get it right. We think it’s TWICE the seal of those IAMTW dudes and dudettes.)

I quote from our home page: “The Professional Hack Authors RecogniTion Society, or PHARTS, is an organization for professional hack authors, i.e., mercenary wordsmiths who don’t care a fig for style, content, originality, or grammar, but are willing to write anything for money. We are of all ages, races, ethnic backgrounds, religious persuasions, and sexual preferences, comprising even Old PHARTS, New PHARTS, Red PHARTS, Blue PHARTS.”

The PHARTS website includes the Hack Writers Library, “Featuring all the Professional Self-Help Authoring Tools You Will Ever Need!” 4 But if there is one lesson that PHARTS can teach the aspiring writer, that lesson is the value of plagiarism. Because ideas are best if they are swiped from somewhere else, since it requires much less work to rip off than it does to think, we at PHARTS steal whatever good ideas we find. And one of those ideas is the Public Broadcasting Pledge Drive, one of the most insidious and irritating cultural phenomena ever to inflict itself on an unsuspecting public.

Yes, that’s right, PHARTS is having our second ever Pledge Drive. 5 We can call it a Pledge Drive instead just a Membership Drive because of the way that PHARTS handles its dues. PHARTS dues are pledged, not paid! That’s right! All you have to do to join PHARTS is fill in a few questions and send us an IOU! The kicker is that in order to quit, you have to pay off your marker. So PHARTS membership is for life, kind of like prison after commiting a heinous crime! Isn’t that great? We think so.

But what kind of Pledge Drive would it be if we didn’t have a Special Offer if You Join in the Next Fifteen Minutes? You already get a neat-o PDF Certificate when you join, so what could be better? Well, if You Join in the Next Fifteen Minutes 6, PHARTS will DOUBLE YOUR ORDER and give you TWO PDF Certificates for the Price of One! That’s right!!!

Finally, I will buy a drink at the bar for any PHARTS member who attends Bouchercon 2008: Charmed to Death. Watch this space to get news of a Criminal Brief panel at the convention. 7

So what are you waiting for? Operators aren’t standing by, but what the hell. That’s what the internet is for. Apply today!8

1. I just thought that I would point out that there have been short story tie-ins as well: science fiction legend James Blish wrote eleven Star Trek tie-in collections of short stories. [↩]
2. It must be emphasized that writing tie-in novels should only be attempted trained professionals. When tried by by amateurs, the tragic result is fanfic, i.e., exactly the same thing done for love not money, but unsanctioned by copyright holders. [↩]
3. As defined by the Oxford English Dictionary, a hack is “A person whose services may be hired for any kind of work required of him; a common drudge, … esp. a literary drudge, who hires himself out to do any and every kind of literary work; hence, a poor writer, a mere scribbler.” [↩]
4. Including The Hack Writers Guide to Writing the Screenplay, by our own “Debora Helliot-Upton Sinclair”, a pseudonym. [↩]
5. The first Pledge Drive was three years ago, when we phounded the organization. Since then we’ve kind of let things slide, which just goes to show what a great organization PHARTS is, since it doesn’t require you to do squat. [↩]
6. These are the same Next Fifteen Minutes you must order within to get those special Two-for-One Deals advertised by Billy May on TV. [↩]
7. To be moderated by Linda Landrigan, editor of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, the panel will feature Melodie Johnson Howe, Angela Zeman, John M. Floyd, and James Lincoln Warren. Stay tuned. [↩]
8. I just threw in this last footnote to see if anybody actually reads these teensy-weensy footnotes. [↩]