Authors Do Not Exist For You
Look, this has been pissing me off for a long time. MONTHS. Years, possibly. Ever since I saw a review and dozens of comments on it that amounted to ‘I know the author’s had personal problems but I’m fed up with waiting for her to update this series’
Mind you that personal problem was HER MOTHER HAD CANCER.
And I have seen more comments and complaints (and emails and DMS and PMs…) since then.
I get that it’s frustrating when authors don’t finish series. Or publish a new book, period. I have been on the receiving end of that. I am guilty of it. That’s one of the reasons my main goal is to FINISH the High Court series and then start wrapping up other straggling series.
But. If I decided to quit writing tomorrow, I am entitled to that decision and I owe no one anything. I was well within my rights to remove Embrace. I am tempted to pull other stories, for one reason or another, and no one has the right to get mad at me for that. They’re MINE, I chose to share them and I can choose to stop sharing them.
I refer you to Neil Gaiman’s masterful post on this matter: Authors are not your bitch.
Because we’re not. We have lives. We have problems. Getting sick, sick family, losing homes, losing jobs, moving, deaths, so on and so forth. We do not live in isolated little bubbles where all we do is exist to amuse and entertain you. We do not owe anyone our stories. We choose to share them.
So yes, by all means be disappointed and frustrated. But realize how fucking awful it is, too, to be pissed off your not getting more story while the author’s mother is dying of cancer. Maybe think about how you would feel if you were them. Authors - artists - are human. It would be nice if people remembered that more often.
You know what I do if a fic author has dropped the ball on something I happen to be addicted to? I go write a spin-off fic for my own entertainment.
I understand too well that authors have lives outside of writing. I am an author and I have a life, and it gets in the way of doing the thing, sometimes. I can only keep going with my stuff if I focus my efforts on one thing at a time and, sometimes, force myself to do the thing.
If -heaven forfend- there was a medical disaster in the family, I would likely have to drop everything and go take care of that. Even then, I’d probably still obsessively write something during all the hurry-up-and-wait because it would be something to do.
But I can guarantee that it likely won’t be anything of quality. My brain would be elsewhere.
Give authors a break. Don’t complain. Try writing your own thing and see how tricky it is.
And if you don’t have the time, be grateful that an author does.
(via faireladypenumbra)