Quote:
Originally Posted by Wiggum  November would be fine, I'm just getting a little sick of his rants about how abused he is by his fans, and how woeful he feels, and how unexpected the amount of reaction he gets is.
If you're going to leave these avenues of communication open, and even broaden them, a la the relatively recent addition of his blog, at this point you should be prepared for what will come through on most internet based communiques. It's a shame that many people abuse these things, but either deal with it, or shut it down. I hate the fact that this is part of anonymous internet relations, but we all have to deal with the fact that it is.
Finish the book, when you're done you're done, but stop bitching about your fans, idiots or not.
//off rant// |
First, I don't know that I'd class as 'his fans' those people who hijack a GRRM blog entry that's dedicated to arranging, er, a meet with his fans, in order to complain that he ought to be dedicating every hour to writing.
Second, I don't know an author who bitches
less about his fans and spends more time praising them.
Third, the blog entry above is at least attempting to inject a little humour into the issue, rather than just bitch about it. In fact, I can't see any bitching in it at all, just politeness and humour. So I think he is 'dealing with it', in his own way: but he feels that he has to at least explain to people why there won't be any more updates.
Generally, GRRM is pretty good-humoured about the negativity - during the latter days before AFFC's release, he used to wear a baseball cap with 'No, it's not done yet' as he wandered around cons, for example.
Regarding communication with fans, GRRM comes at this from a slightly unusual perspective in that he was heavily involved in the fan scene before he got famous and has tried to be as open with his fans as the authors he admired were with him. There are two problems with that, of course: there are now many more ways to do that, and (partly as a consequence) GRRM has a lot more fans. It's not a case of sending letters to a guy whose story you saw in a fanzine any more. It's mass communication. The HBO deal has only made it worse. I think GRRM is realising that he can't go on the way he was, but it goes against his grain to close off those avenues.