Moving back to the article:
“It behooves a writer to be good to his fans,” he says.
I don't care if he passes out handjobs at Dragon-Con. The best way to be good to your fans is give them something to read. Sacrificing (significant) time writing the next book over giving the diehards cute titles is like the phone company raising your rates and sending you a nice tote bag to thank you for your business. To me, it looks gimmicky and the mark of an insecure writer.
“The tale grew in the telling,” Martin often says, quoting J. R. R. Tolkien, a writer he greatly admires.
By all accounts, this happens. You shouldn't expect a pat on the back for it, though. (and once again, Tolkien submitted a single manuscript. he didn't make the audience go through the process with him)
“I made the fatal mistake of saying, ‘But the other book is half-written and I should be able to finish it within a year.’ ”
Yeah. That's called lying in some circles (or, more kindly, "letting your mouth write a check your ass can't cash"). It tends to piss people off.
As the chief moderator of Westeros.org, García deleted forum posts that he regarded as “not constructive,” including increasingly wild speculation about the cause of the delay and the ultimate fate of the series. Martin’s blog was similarly monitored.
Glad I never wasted any time there. Man, half the THOOLAH people here would be banned.
The online attacks on Martin suggest that some readers have a new idea about what an author owes them. They see themselves as customers, not devotees, and they expect prompt, consistent service. Martin, who is sixty-two, told me that Franck calls the disaffected readers the Entitlement Generation: “He thinks they’re all younger people, teens and twenties. And that their generation just wants what they want, and they want it now. If you don’t give it to them, they’re pissed off.”
Yeah, what would I know of hard work, dedication, and delayed gratification? Yes, I do see myself as a customer. More than that, I see my place in the risk management strategy that fantasy publishers have created. As I've already said, I don't think any author outside this genre could expect such support (and people wonder why f/sf often doesn't get any respect). The fan communities (like KW) that sprung up around this practice are starting to reject being taken for granted. As the article pretty much said, and as SRD might agree with, these fan communities can be a powerful tool in an author's pocket, but they have every right to turn on you if you mismanage it (including managing expectations). It's only new because few other authors have made it a problem, and only one that I can think of for similar reasons.
Martin is widely credited with taking such fiction in a more adult direction.
Pffft. Popularizing it, yes. He didn't reinvent the wheel, though.
“I’m still getting e-mail from assholes who call me lazy for not finishing the book sooner. They say, ‘You better not pull a Jordan.’ ”
Yeah, emailing that would probably make you an asshole, but we've all thought it.
“How dare he die?” a woman said, witheringly. “I mean, what an inconvenience to the fans.”
No one blames Jordan for dying. Most of us are pretty sad about it. They blame him for dragging the story out unnecessarily when such a thing could happen (I believe Donaldson has discussed this concern as well with the 3rd Chrons.), even before he was diagnosed with his condition. If he kept working on it for 20 more years and then died, could people then be upset? 30?
“People are analyzing every goddam line in these books, and if I make a mistake they’re going to nail me on it.”
Yep. Deal with it. Do the best you can, but people were still writing Tolkien twenty years later to correct these kinds of mistakes. That's what later editions are for.
“As some of you like to point out in your e-mails, I am sixty years old and fat, and you don’t want me to ‘pull a Robert Jordan’ on you and deny you your book. Okay, I’ve got the message. You don’t want me doing anything except ‘A Song of Ice and Fire.’ Ever. (Well, maybe it’s okay if I take a leak once in a while?)”
Pouting never solved anything.
“Where is ‘Atonement II’?” Benioff interjected. “We’ve been waiting and waiting.”
Hilarious, Benny. I'd love a sequel to Fight Club, but nobody's pissed at Palahniuk for not writing one. Why? Because it wasn't sold as part of an incomplete story. On the other hand, Closing Time isn't nearly as famous as Catch 22, mainly because nobody really thought it needed a sequel. Or the time had passed.
‘They better have something good in mind for the end. This end better pay off here.’ And then I felt so cheated when we got to the conclusion.
How would he have felt if he had to wait five years for it? What about The X-Files?
He does think of himself as being bound by an informal contract with his readers;
See?
he feels that he owes them his best work. He doesn’t, however, believe that this gives them the right to dictate the particulars of his creative process or to complain about how he manages his time.
Some of us disagree that that contract works one way. I also don't give a fig about his creative process or time management, so long as he can deliver a decent product in a decent time.
It makes little difference to these fans that they knew the series wasn’t finished when they started reading it, and that they still own the books they spent all that time and money on. As far as the detractors are concerned, Martin’s contract with them was for a story, their engagement with it offered on the understanding that he would provide them with a satisfying conclusion.
That's at least half right. I will just repeat that if fans waited until a series was done to see if it was worth buying all of, either the publishing model would have to change or the latter books wouldn't get printed. This isn't a problem for the vast majority of authors, even the ones that suck (because we expect them to suck or like the way they suck. See Twilight).
Contrary to what his more extravagant critics allege, Martin insists that he has been working continuously on “A Dance with Dragons.” “They have all these insane theories ...
My theory isn't so extravagant. He just doesn't have what it takes to pull off such an ambitious project. Grand ideas are great, but it takes more than that, even on the printed page.
“Maybe I have perfectionist’s disease, or whatever.”
Admirable, but this isn't a job interview, Mr. Martin. Don't let the perfect become the enemy of the good.
“I don’t want to come across as a whiner or a complainer,” Martin said...
No, but you're fine portraying your critics as such.
“What if I fuck it up at the end? What if I do a ‘Lost’? Then they’ll come after me with pitchforks and torches.”
A lot of this think you're already fucking it up. Suck it up and write. You're not going to please everybody, and you risk displeasing more by not finishing the damn thing, either while you're alive or while people still care.
Normally, I'd take agreeing to disagree as a victory, but the way you phrased it didn't allow it. Nor is an apology necessary. All I was looking for was an ,"Oh, I guess intelligent people do have valid reasons for being disgruntled." I didn't take your comments or others' as a personal slight, but a challenge.
) For me this maybe says more about SRD than Martin. (Probably along with everyone else on the Watch) I think that integrity is the key to SRD's work. He never does anything that might threaten his writing or his ability to write. Any of the ancilliary stuff comes a distant second-place to the actual act of writing.
