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The theme of all of the writing blogs this week was about the writer as a word machine. Most of this came from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
grrm's defense/explanation about the lateness of A Dance with Dragons and Pat Rothfuss's similar post about The Wise Man's Fears. scalzi put out the best manifesto on the subject this week with his "10 Things to Remember about Authors". The gist of all of the discussions is that authors are people. They have problems. Deadlines are missed.
I have a couple of things to add to the discussion. First, readers who get angry at an author for taking too long with a book to the point that they send hate mail to that author should be beaten with a copy of Battlefield: Earth. We don't need you. Please stop "reading" and go find another hobby. Look, I want to read Pat's and George's next books as much as anybody does. I would like to remind people, though, that 2,843 SF books were published in 2008 alone (according to Locus). Go find another damn book. You might just discover a new author that you like.
The second thing is personal. I am still just an aspiring fiction writer, but I might grow up to be published author. When that day comes, I will be screwed. I've had a good 18 months of writing. I've produced at least 170,000 words. That coincided with a very healthy Caitlin.
Before anything else, I am Caitlin's caregiver. As much as I don't want to think about it, bad days will come. I can't imagine that I will be writing a good novel from a hospital room. I hope that my readers will cut me some slack.
grrm's defense/explanation about the lateness of A Dance with Dragons and Pat Rothfuss's similar post about The Wise Man's Fears. scalzi put out the best manifesto on the subject this week with his "10 Things to Remember about Authors". The gist of all of the discussions is that authors are people. They have problems. Deadlines are missed.I have a couple of things to add to the discussion. First, readers who get angry at an author for taking too long with a book to the point that they send hate mail to that author should be beaten with a copy of Battlefield: Earth. We don't need you. Please stop "reading" and go find another hobby. Look, I want to read Pat's and George's next books as much as anybody does. I would like to remind people, though, that 2,843 SF books were published in 2008 alone (according to Locus). Go find another damn book. You might just discover a new author that you like.
The second thing is personal. I am still just an aspiring fiction writer, but I might grow up to be published author. When that day comes, I will be screwed. I've had a good 18 months of writing. I've produced at least 170,000 words. That coincided with a very healthy Caitlin.
Before anything else, I am Caitlin's caregiver. As much as I don't want to think about it, bad days will come. I can't imagine that I will be writing a good novel from a hospital room. I hope that my readers will cut me some slack.
