I have a query for you. Ages and ages ago – as a kid, even! – I saved the following text file about an imaginary creature I thought up:
Glat.TXT
SOMEDAY, I intend to write a Sci-Fi
children’s story called "Kenny’s
Glat" (this is simply a phonetic
Spoonerism for the phrase "Glenny’s
Cat," in whose honor I will write the
story), about a little boy named
Kenny, and his adventures with a pet
“Glat” that an alien once gave him.
I imagine a “Glat” to be a roughly
oval-shaped alien creature about ten
inches long, six inches wide, and
four inches high, with short, soft,
silky, banana-yellow fur, no tail, a
wide, soft, flabby, toothless mouth
with a long, green, and prehensile
tongue. Six short stubby legs with
three opposable (dull) equidistant
purple claws on each leg. It has large,
keen, pointed orange ears with floppy
tips, able to hear both infra- and
ultrasound, a VERY acute empathic
awareness, and three eyestalks at
one end that can aim in any direction
and can move independently of one
another, each one with a single
large, keen, vivid crimson eye
that can see both infrared and
ultraviolet. When it’s happy, a
“Glat” will purr with a low, soft,
trilling coo, accompanied by a
soft babble of melodic
gibberish.
Just out of curiosity, how much would you charge me to bring this hypercute imagonary creature to life on the page? And, if ever I wrote the actual story, how much would you then charge to surrender your copyright?