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"No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money."
-- Dr. Samuel Johnson
***
"Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for the love of it, then you do it for a few friends, and finally you do it for money."
-- Moliere
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Well, he's not everyone's favorite curmudgeon. There's a pretty funny riff in Mst3k movie MITCHELL where an extra in a scene (who looks like Ellison) is getting arrested.
"Look, they're arresting Harlan Ellison!"
"Good."
Just one more reason why Mitchell is my favorite espisode of MST3K.
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He's only half right.
Every writer had to work his way there, and pro bono is not uncommon. What if a writer who surpassed Ellison was starting out? He'd not expect to be paid Ellison's rates, but if his work was better, he'd get the exposure and be paid better next time. And anyhow, the precise situations he's addressing here are buyouts. If percentage agreements are in place then ongoing royalties.
Many people involved in film work sign contracts that their work can be used for the project's publicity.
Yes, everyone should be paid, but his strategy would preclude new writers getting work, because who'd take the risk and hire them when they are untried, yet cost the same as the old established?
He climbs the ladder, then pulls it up and burns it.
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Where's a good place to start reading Ellison? What's his good stuff? Any recommendations? I know I must have seen a show or two he's written in the past but never read anything hes actually written.
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I recommend these two collections of short stories to start:
The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World
I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream
But in some ways the best thing he ever did was editing Dangerous Visions and Again, Dangerous Visions - collections of new "speculative fiction" (his preferred term) stories from a very wide range of authors in the 1960s and 1970s that did a lot to pave the way for the many threads of sf even today.
Weirdly though, the stories I remember best of Ellison's are not in these two collections: Hitler Painted Roses (in the collection Strange Wine), and One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty (in Approaching Oblivion). I guess I'm saying any collection has strong stories. I just think of the first two as seminal, I guess.
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"No wonder Der Great Scot Connery rightfully became the bane of film studios because he'd justifiably sue 'em inna second "
Poor Sean. He had the misfortune of hooking up with two of the worst cheapskates in Hollywood: Broccoli & Saltzman (John Barry is still waiting to be paid for DR. NO!)
"They would play Bond themselves to save money"
-Sean Connery
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Ta for the recommendations Sean and Gordon, I'll check his stuff out.
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He always seemed inexplicably smug, to me. Especially for someone who wrote the horrendous screenplay for the film, THE OSCAR.
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Much obliged, Pres:
Has been known to happen 
