Friday 27 February 2009

Authors on Writing and Obligations

Whilst sparked by the GRRM furore of a couple of weeks ago, a number of other authors have spoken out about the problems they face with deliveries, promises, false release dates and a lack of understanding over the writing process. Charlie Stross weighs in here (some other authors and Tor uber-editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden appear in the comments), John Scalzi here and here, and, most recently, Patrick Rothfuss here. Tom Lloyd also offers a relative newcomer to the genre's perspective here.

Rothfuss, who has been suffering similar harassment to GRRM, makes some very interesting and good points about the issues he has been suffering on The Wise Man's Fear, but notably doesn't mention several of the big personal problems (which he did blog about last year) that have no doubt contributed to the delay. The idea that people would continue to moan about the book being late after that is pretty stunning.

In the meantime, those fretting over delayed gratification and want to hear about something that has been finished can read the first review of Joe Abercrombie's Best Served Cold here.

1 comment:

Drewids said...

I think we all can sympathize with Patrick and his issues and can easily await Wise Mans Fear. In general I feel that if it takes an author a few years between books, that is fine, it's usually worth it. But (yes, there is always one), Martin's wait is excessive, as Erickson said, he's "easily distracted", I think that will always be the problem with some fans.