Babel Clash

No, no, no, Joe. You completely misunderstand the purpose of the Official Brent Weeks Ning Forum to Praise the Sublimely Laudable Brent Weeks ™! It isn’t for people to tell me how great I am. Are you kidding? If I let actual people into my forum, they might criticize me! Not all of us have bulletproof self-regard. You see, the truly impressive thing about the OBWN ™ is that I write EVERY SINGLE POST. Then I write in to thank myself. It’s a veritable post-modern palimpsest. (Sorry, Joe, I know you hate words with more than four letters. Or less, frel it.) It’s so meta, I can hardly stand it. I’m almost as good as the Amazon.com sock puppet master, HE WHO MUST NOT BE NAMED. No, no, not moldy Voldy. The OTHER one.

Anyway, there seems a common thought in artistic circles that artists don’t owe anyone anything. It’s garbage. (Whether carbuncles on the fat, wrinkly behind of writing such as fantasy authors deserve to be called “artists” is beside the point.)

Neil Gaiman does fantastic work and says huge numbers of intelligent, brilliant, and beautiful things. Unfortunately, in the middle of the argument several people have cited, he drops a big steaming pile of straw man. He sets up a weak argument so he can knock it down. He alleges that a reader is demanding that George R. R. Martin spend every waking hour writing. Joe, you repeat the canard with your own ineffable flavor: “how dare George Martin take a crap, he should be spending that wasted crapping time on Dance with Dragons.” (Odd that your ineffable Eau de Joe should redole of… loo hole, no?)

Now, maybe someone out there expects writers to write 24 hours a day, but I’ve never seen them. It’s easy to mock an argument no one is making; it’s just not fair, whether you’re a hugely talented writer, or Joe Abercrombie.

You write a series, people expect it to have an ending. (Let me be clear I’m not attacking GRRM, the guy’s a king and I’m a huge fan. It’s just impossible to address these arguments while ignoring Joe’s and Neil’s main example.)

If people knew your series wouldn’t end, most wouldn’t shell out $30 per hardcover. Especially not 5, 7, or 14 times. Can you imagine a book store clerk saying, “Oh, great choice! I love that series. It’s so awesome how it doesn’t end!” People understand that life and art are unpredictable (RIP Robert Jordan). But they want honesty. I think we owe them that. In the comments earlier, Morgan said it very tactfully, showing why he has an actual job: “If an author says that there will be a new book in a year, but it takes three, fans are ticked off…. It is that feeling of dashed hopes that turns even seemingly ordinary people into frenzied grouches.”

So when people ask you when they can give you more money for more story, and you tell them about figurines and swords and games and art they can buy, don’t be surprised if a few say, “That’s nice, but I want more story.” Gosh, what do you do? How about posting this: “Book going rough. Probably 2 more years. Working hard. Will be gr8!”

If a reader wants a writer to take the time to post that, clearly she demands that he write 24 hours a day. Come on, Joe. A writer could post that WHILE taking a crap.

Again, GRRM is hugely talented, and I love his work, and I think Joe and I each owe him a commercial and artistic debt. Though Joe’s debt is MUCH bigger. (Nah, ya don’t need to check that link. Here’s the only relevant part: “Joe Abercrombie’s Best Served Cold…[is] missing a map.” -GRRM)

So here are my rules, forged in the hot fires of almost 700 days of publishing experience. What I owe readers:

1) The absolute best stories I’m capable of writing.

2) Courtesy. Some fans are louts. Lots of people have louts who pay their salaries. They deal, so can I.

3) Honesty. For professional reasons, readers don’t get to know everything, of course. And sometimes Thumper’s Maxim applies. But if I KNOW my next book is going to be late, or that I’m not going to be at a conference I said I’d be at, or can’t do an interview or whatever, ‘fess up, ya putz.

As for your little ha-ha about my allegedly limited abilities, well, I don’t know how to say this, friend, but I did a little search…

p.s. I realize I didn’t really get into addressing your last questions about what authors owe a reader INSIDE a book, but frel this post is getting long…

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