No, not THOSE kind of relations. I don't write that kinda stuff. (yet)
But Guy Gavriel Kay ponders the relationship between an author and their readers in this age of blogs and web presence.
Now, I blog. (dunno if anyone knows that, but..y'know, here we are) Mostly, I started this so that I could spew my neuroses without driving my beta readers/friends/family totally bonkers. But I always did it with an eye toward someday connecting with my readers. (when I have some)
I read several author blogs (more than I actually list in my sidebar, actually) and I really enjoy the insight it gives me into their personalities, and their everyday processes I like knowing that I'm not the only one who struggles with balancing writing life with real life.
The thing is, we all HAVE real lives. I mean, even Bizillion-Dollar-Earning Author has a real life. They have groceries to buy, they have a yard to mow. They have days when they wake up with a cold and alien creatures crawling out of their sinuses and they think "Oh gawd, I can't even sit up, let alone write."
Those are the things I learn from authors blogging. They are people. They're not super-human computerized creativity machines. They're people, and sometimes they have crappy days, and sometimes, those crappy days string into crappy weeks and months. It just HAPPENS.
Yeah, I get that some readers are ticked when their favorite author doesn't produce in what they deem a timely manner. But really, until every person out there squalling has tried to write through water main breaks, and chimneys in front yards, and depression, and child birth, and flat tires, and first days of school and ALL of that in the same month... They really don't have any room to throw stones.
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3 comments:
No complaints from this corner. My real life seems to eat every other portion of my life, I get it.
Great post. I used to get frustrated when I was younger, waiting for the next book in a series to come out...now, well, I still want the next book *soon*, but I understand how hard it can be to try to fit writing a novel, which is not a small endeavor at all, around a life.
And these days everybody's got their blog, their website, Tweets, FB, MS....hell, just keeping up with an online presence is a full time job sometimes.
It seems to me writers have less time for actual writing now that there's so much pressure to have an online presence. Twixt blogging and tweeting, the next book will take even longer. (My problem has always been more along the lines of waiting impatiently for my favorite bands to put out the next album. I'm looking at you, Rammstein.)
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