-Jack here. Larry has been saying much the same thing for a long time now…
(Edit: to clarify, this is something Larry said on the Book of Faces. I archive things here for him so they don’t get memory holed. This is his blog, not mine- I don’t write these.)
I was on another author’s page in a post where they were announcing the release of a new book, and some dude rolled in to whine about how he shouldn’t be writing this new book, but should instead be writing more books in the other series that this guy likes better instead. When the other fans told him that was a dick move, he doubled down, and proceeded to pontificate about what he thought that author’s problems were, and what he would like totally do if he was the author… Now keep in mind, this is on the author’s personal page.
This was my response, and I’m posting this here in the hopes that others might learn and not do this kind of stupid shit to authors they supposedly love. If you want more stuff from them, shaming them in their own living room ain’t gonna make them write faster.
##
(name redacted) you may think you are helping. You are not helping.
In fact, guys like you, and your endless ignorant pontification of what’s going on in writers’ brains is the opposite of helping. You are an active hinderance to production and creativity. You are the introduction of pressure into a system which is already overwhelmed with more pressure than you can comprehend. When guys like you come along and make authors feel guilty, it creates a negative feedback loop that causes even more production issues.
Part of the problem is you think you are just you, but you aren’t. To the writer you are the thousandth time they’ve heard the same whining complaint, which if the writer knew how to fix, they would have already fixed.
The single most valuable thing for author creativity is their enthusiasm. If they are enthusiastic and talking about that project in public that means they are creating. They are feeling it. They are talking about it.
Then you come along and fucking shit all over that creativity, and demand that they stop feeling that joy and instead focus on your needs and desires instead, by turning their attention back to the other project that they’re stuck on or can’t work on for some business reasons you aren’t privy to, so they feel guilty for letting their fans down, which utterly crushes that joy, which is more negative feedback that makes them less productive.
And most authors are too fucking nice to tell assholes like you that you are being a destructive selfish asshole.
You want to complain, you are free to do so. Do it in your own space. Do it on neutral pages. Doing it on the author’s own page in the comments of a post about where they’re talking about something they’re excited about to shit on it and tear down their enthusiasm is a fucking dick move, as would be recognized by anybody with an ounce of self awareness or humility.
Then when other fans point out that you’re being a douchebag, doubling down on the douchiness and entitlement doesn’t help sway them, and it sure as shit ain’t gonna make the author you supposedly love write any faster.
So take it over to your page or some book page or goodreads and whine away. Shitting on the author’s livelihood in the author’s living room while that author is making an announcement to sell a new product so they can buy groceries and pay the rent is crass.
I don’t know who originally said it about book fans that feel entitled to do this stupid crap to writers, but:
“The Author is not Your Bitch.”
As a programmer in the Open Source Software world, I see this behavior all the time and it poisons the well. Stuff’s functional and free, quit bitching and be grateful that you aren’t paying for it. Either deal with it, fork it, or use closed software.
As a fan, I’m happy for any books, songs, software or any other media that entertains me. I’m not going to poop on the creators process.
Also there is too much quality content in the world to worry about critiquing individual creators foibles or schedules. Go explore somewhere else or consume something else. Big world!
I find it helps that I just enjoy an authors work.
MHI? I have the original self published one from TFL days, the Baen version, the hardcovers. Hard Magic? Oh, hell yes. Was I itching for another MH novel? Of course. Hard Magic and Black Sword are phenomenal, and both make me itch for the next book in each series, so I’m not going to demand Larry be chained to a keyboard and forced to produce endless MHI. Collections? Spin offs? Yes again. I enjoy the imagination, and the absolute dedication involved in producing such an amount of entertaining content.
Conversely, I completely lost interest in GoT. I’m not going to bitch about it, I just haven’t cared about how it winds up for quite a while.
I think these morons just need to be spammed with links to AI and told that if they want custom order stories, to ask them. Sure, it’d be crap, but it’s no worse than what would happen if they chained the author to a desk and beat the author until they supplied the desired story, but with less felonies.
AI can crank out content that matches or exceeds the quality of most of the recent “diverse” and gravity challenged Hugo winners… Not that it would sell worth a damn, but it’s an amusing toy, if you don’t vomit:
“””The brisk Cleveland wind whipped at Zahir’s meticulously styled afro as he wrestled a rogue Big Gulp cup from a storm drain. Beside him, Celeste, nose crinkled in distaste, plucked a cigarette butt from a flowerbed, her jade green Doc Martens sinking into the damp earth. Their mismatched crew, all sporting the dubious distinction of court-mandated orange jumpsuits – the new “haute couture” in Judge Jenkins’ eyes – looked like a spilled bag of Skittles in a city perpetually stuck on sepia tone.
There was Miguel, the brooding Latino poet with a surprising talent for origami, currently refolding a discarded pizza box into a precarious crane. Luna, the Native American with a shaved head and a fierce glare reserved for particularly stubborn candy wrappers, wielded a grabber like a warrior queen. And then there was Darius, the lanky white kid with a trust fund and a despairing glint in his eyes, perpetually composing angsty tweets on his confiscated phone (hidden, naturally, within the voluminous folds of his jumpsuit).
Their “community service rehabilitation program,” a brainchild of the city’s ever-so-slightly corrupt mayor, was Cleveland’s answer to a recent spate of “hipstery hooliganism” – whatever that meant. Here they were, the supposed culprits, picking up the detritus of a city that seemed to have given up on itself years ago.
As the morning wore on, the monotony was broken only by Celeste’s sardonic commentary and Miguel’s increasingly existential pronouncements about the nature of litter. A shared sense of absurdity began to bloom. Luna, with a mischievous glint in her eye, started arranging the trash into “sculptures” – a precarious tower of White Claw cans here, a sardonic portrait of Mayor Quimby out of cigarette butts there. The others, initially hesitant, found themselves drawn in. By lunchtime, their designated cleaning area boasted a surprisingly poignant (and entirely biodegradable) exhibit of modern urban malaise.
A gaggle of office workers, on their cigarette break, stopped to stare. A beat cop, ever the picture of amusement, chuckled and took a picture. A sense of camaraderie, forged in the fires of absurdity, sparked between the crew. Maybe, just maybe, they could turn this punishment into something… artistic?
By the end of the day, their jumpsuits were stained and their spirits were… not exactly high, but a grudging camaraderie had formed. They weren’t friends, not yet, but they were a team, united by their disdain for orange and their newfound appreciation for the sheer volume of crap people discarded without a thought. As they shuffled back to the beat-up van that served as their transport, a silent vow hung in the air: they wouldn’t let the system turn them into mindless drones. They’d make this punishment their own, a performance art piece titled “The Orange Jumpsuit Revolution,” or something equally obnoxious. Cleveland, they decided, wouldn’t know what hit it.”””
These days I think the problem isn’t AI competing with humans and more humans barely really competing at all
TBF, we almost all have the equivalent of a Writer’s Block, just apply that to just about everything
AI however doesn’t have this problem, it just splurges out something, anything, even when it’s F-Ing terrible because unlike us it has no sense of shame let alone guilt
That stuff is part of how our creative gears are stopped by a sense of reality AKA the Writer’s Block
That was awful, is it AI, or a human?
Did the words ‘weeble’ and ‘wobble’ appear in the text? That’s how you tell…?
Unfortunately, even with AI, too many have something like Writer’s Block regardless of the tools and opportunities present before them
Douchebag should be grateful that the author is still around to write anything.
There will be no more stories in any series from David Drake, or Jerry Pournelle, or….
Appreciate what you have.
And I just got a kidney punch to the feelz by this entirely accurate post. And while I never saw Jerry in person I did see David Drake more than once and he was such a fine gentleman. I’ll miss his demeanor as much as his books.
Jerry Pournelle was a friend I’ve known since around 1990. Heck, most of the time on his blog messages from “Serving Officer” were from me. I still can’t make myself read Mamelukes, even though I read the draft, because it is the last of his work I can read for the first time. I do so wish I could read more of the things he was planning to write. We discussed what happened after Mercenary, what happened to Rick and Tylara’s children, a story of a girl raised by AI on a spacecraft in a rocketpunk setting…
Larry,
I would personally like to state for the record, here in your living room, that I am seriously looking forward to you wrapping up SotFW. However, I read everything you put out, and will continue to do so, even if you were relegated to writing ingredients lists on the back on household cleaners under the sink next to my toilet.
I get it that writing takes time, that you have multiple balls in the air at any given moment, and I take solace in the fact that you aren’t GRRM and will indeed be releasing the final book sooner rather than never. I have tried to turn pretty much everyone I talk to about books on to you.
P.s. I used you as a citation in my Shooting Sports Management course I’m taking in pursuit of my firearms technology degree. It was the amazing rant you wrote back after Sandy Hook. I reread that every few months or so. You are an American treasure.
I have found that to be a common trait of assholes: when called on their assholery, they respond by being even bigger assholes.
I’m reminded of back in the 80s when John Williams was the hottest composer in Hollywood and also the conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra. He considered each activity a refresher from the other.
I think of that whenever I hear about writers working on multiple projects at the same time. As long as they’re creating something, it’s fine. And if that means taking a break from one thing to work on another thing, hey, whatever works for them is all good. It can even lead to some cross-pollination of ideas.
It’s what I think GRRM needs to do rather than being stuck on Winds of Winter
Unfortunately, part of GRRM’s problem is that in all likelihood he’s fallen out of love with writing, he has more than enough money, he likes Hollywood better than books and his skills have likely atrophied
Hell, I am betting that most of Elden Ring’s writing was Hidetaka Miyazaki, at first Miyazaki was excited to work with GRRM only to not get much and decide to work with that and use GRRM’s name to market a bit more
The “Martin has writer’s block/doesn’t enjoy writing anymore” runs smack into the fact that he’s still taking on contracts to write more stuff. He can still write. He just doesn’t want to write ASoIaF.
The most likely answer is that the original author is buried somewhere next to whomever wrote Ready Player One
How about this as an example for all you fans out there: Larry, I love reading your books, and they have given me a great deal of pleasure over the years. Thank you so much! You write whatever you feel like writing, and I will gladly pay for it, and read it!
There’s an unfortunate natural consequence of your favorite X making a constant stream of content; you never find new makers of that thing.
This is a bug or feature entirely dependent on one’s outlook.
TBF, I think a LOT of people have something like Artist’s Block
I’m not blaming SciFi guys like Christopher G Nuttall, Rick Partlow, JN Chaney etc for there being less military scifi types
But I guess seeing so much output, can make people feel nervous
Or bizarrely even without having to read the stuff, make ‘em feel that the stuff they produce is “all the same” and as such they themselves try to be “better authors” only to overthink things
Others just want to maybe write one book and that’s all, they don’t want to make a career out of it
A surprisingly tepid response from Larry, but still on point.
It’s because it’s not Larry, it’s Jack.
But yes, either way, he’s totally correct.
I apologize if I wasn’t clear- this is something Larry said elsewhere. I’m just archiving it here for posterity
FWIW, I thought it was rather obvious.
To be fair, it was on another author’s page. I’m sure if it was posted her or on FB it’d a little more…spicy.
While I would love Mr. Correia to put out more content I also want that content to be up to his usual standards and I understand that takes time. I am willing to be patient because I understand that quality takes time and that the author is a human being.
This reminded me of what Heinlein said about
critics “produces nothing so feel qualified to bang on other people’s work” or words
to that effect. But is this an internet culture
thing where anonymity encourages assholery? Or were people always this arrogant?
My advice to these narcissistic wankers is to get a life. Is their recreational life so impoverished that they mash F5 like a crack monkey on their author’s favorite webpage?
Is their lashing out a sort of withdrawal symptom they can’t cope with by some healthier means? Resuming that home improvement project that’s been 90% finished for the past two years? Maybe shed some excess poundage? Read one of a million other books that are literally at their fingertips?
I say I can’t wait for Larry to finish the last installment of the SotFW, but the reality is, I can. Mostly because I’m not an anti-social shut-in whose life apparently revolves brooding until the next installment of one damn series of books.
There is -always- some guy who’s going to rain on your parade. It doesn’t matter what you do, That Guy will be there, and it’ll be raining, and you’ll think to yourself, “that don’t smell like rain.”
Really, I don’t even care why anymore. It doesn’t matter what their motivation is. It isn’t important what motivates these emotional cripples. Set to ignore, drive on.
And then there are the “critics”, self-appointed guardians of “Quality!!!!” we see leaving one or two star reviews because the good guy was too good, or the bad guy wasn’t eeeevile enough, or their favorite perversion wasn’t mentioned.
The two most annoying things I see from “critics” are Wokeism at #1 most annoying, and people insisting on “dark” or “important” themes at a close #2. Truth is, nobody wants Woke in their book, and the number of people thirsting for authors to tackle “the important issues of our time” as listed by the general media are at most small.
Not to mention, people write at the speed they write. Telling them to hurry up is stupid. They are going as fast as they can, if they’re doing something good. It doesn’t come out any faster.
This is Internet, not your living room. You might be told to get stuffed. Deal with it, author or not. You want a living room – close the comments. Or not. Do your thing. But bitching about mean readers and fans upsetting your writey soul is just silly.
I don’t know, educating some fans on how they hurt not help may actually help them turn from toxic fandom to supportive. Even the toxic ones that won’t get a clue can still be used as a bad example. Sure, you can just ban/block everyone you don’t like, but then you lose an opportunity for both learning and discussion about what you can do to actually help the writer whose work you like be successful.
Do you realize just how idiotic your comment is?
Writing idiotic comments is what Gena does best.
This one talks like clamps.
Is that you, little Andrew?
Agreed. Instead of complaining about douche bags like you, authors should just delete their whiny crap via harsh moderation.
They can go whine on self-important little critic sites.
Hello, person who is totally real and not an obvious sock puppet.
It’s my virtual living room, you pedantic fuck. 😀
I deal with dipshits like you daily, no problem. It isn’t like you meaningless rhetorical devices are actual people to me. But I was pointing out an actual issue that plagues some authors. If you want to be a bitch about it, groovy. You’ll find that I’m not them. I prefer to hit issues head on.
As for what you think is silly, I truly have zero fucks to give. And if you want to go through life being an obnoxious dumbfuck that makes the world worse than it needs to be, great. I’ll happily shit on you for it. 🙂
Come to think of it though, dumbfuck here is right about one thing. I could close comments, but far better, I can just mark the occasional annoying dumbfuck who blunders in as spam. 🙂
Slightly unrelated to this thread, do you know what has happened to Dan Simmons? His forum was taken down and domain name expired and is in the hands of other people. A great writer.
I was wondering about that. You can still find his content in time machine but I wonder why… Hope he’s ok.
Writers, like any other creative at times just lose their passion to keep on going
Remember, they mainly do this, not because they need to do it for a living
But because they love the work
Odds are he just started feeling disinterested and bored and it’s not like he’s left some big outline to span more books and the like
Course, something bad could still have happened, and for better and worse, we can’t know everything that happened to a guy as the internet doesn’t contain everything
Readers are writer’s customers. When a customer tells you something, you better listen. Some customers are assholes, most are not. Some are wrong. But usually they tell you what they actually need you to do. Advising them to go away and let you do what you are doing because enthusiasm is silly.
Enthusiasm is great but planting your ass behind desk and figuring out how to be productive is better.
There needs to be a combination of both
As much as I dislike how the romanticization of art makes it feel too abstract and vague regarding on how to make it
At times, focusing too much on craft can hinder actually getting it out
No shit, sherlock. And this was a case of a customer being wrong *and* an asshole.
So save your shitty lectures for when they’re appropriate, or when anyone cares to hear them.
Which is never.
Larry is one of the writers who most obviously captures this aspect of writing, so I don’t know why you think saying this is useful. What you seem to miss, is this is very specifically identifying the asshole customer. The customer is not always right, in fact some are not worth dealing with. Yes, if you are generally toxic to your customers, it will go badly for you, but telling the one toxic customer to stop being toxic or get out is actually helpful to your business as it lowers your own stress and allows you to focus on actual beneficial customers.
No Gena you don’t get it your a customer not an employer, no one owes you anything but the very product you’re paid for. You petulant children wander into Burger King and throw a hissy-fit they don’t have tacos
How about you read the post and try again, you illiterate entitled fuck. 🙂
For every bossy dipshit customer I have offended with my honesty, I have gained two or three decent humans.
So I truly don’t give a shit about your dumbfuck contrarian opinion and you can kiss my ass and die.
If this means that you choose not to purchase my products anymore, oh well. I’ll get by just fine.
I kinda doubt that Gena has ever bought one of your products.
You’re right about that one, Joe!
Hehe, I’d say I touched a nerve but I suspect that you’re like that normally. I think it’s endearing that you suspect I might be a customer: kudos for optimism!
“hehe, I said something idiotic, you must be triggered!”
If you’re not a customer, your opinion is even worse than worthless.
Geez, you’re both contentious AND ignorant. Larry screws with trolls for fun, it’s one of his ways of unwinding. You didn’t touch a nerve so much as give him something to play with.
Misery is ~34 years old. It’s not a manual.
Well said Larry.
Now stop writing Son of the Black Sword novels and write more Grimnoire Chronicles.
😁
crossover
Ashok and Faye kill EVERYONE……..to music
“Some dude rolled in to whine about how he shouldn’t be writing this new book, but should instead be writing more books in the other series that this guy likes better instead. When the other fans told–” Where is my Graveyard of Demons, Correia? I see Monster Hunter installments all over the place!
Last time somebody told Larry “You should be writing more!” he took a week off to paint wargame miniatures.
Then threatened to do it again if they kept nagging.
So stop it! It’s a dick move.
Reminds me, any chance that MHI has its own miniature figurines?
In about four months from the last timeline I saw, not sure how many sets will be available for those who missed the kickstarter but if you dig thru the site you could likely find the link I don’t have at the moment
Let me try this! This is an excellent life hack if it works.
Here goes: Larry, stop wasting time and write more! No more silly shooting or dumb miniatures.
No one’s listening you boi go fake up another user name. We’d have to consider you people to listen to your twaddle
This might work if the guy was telling the writer to stop doing things that aren’t, you know, writing.
But you’re a subliterate moron, so of course the point flew right over your tiny little head.
I remember being a little annoyed when Servants of War came out because I really wanted Larry to continue writing in a couple of his other established worlds. But then I read it and really enjoyed it and hope to see a sequel sometime. So, now I just am happy whenever he releases something new because it’s clear Larry can succeed in any genre (and he’s not a lazy A-hole like GRRM!) With that being said… here’s hoping for another Grimnoir series before the zombie apocalypse!