Good morning, Readers!

So you remember how last week I kept wanting to blog about something, but could never remember what that something was (because I'm gifted that way)?  Well, I've finally found the time, the words, and actually remembered!  Now, hold on to your hats, people.  This will be a rant.

A few weeks ago, I posted THIS article on my Facebook page regarding a certain writer, Veronica Roth, and the ending of her Divergent series.  For those of you who don't know what the fuss was about, it goes a little something like this:

SPOILER ALERT

Right, well, at the end of the series (the whole of which had seriously romantic overtones, I understand) she kills off her main character, leaving the romantic interest all alone forever and ever amen.

Her fan base exploded, spewing all manner of vitriol at her.  Some of it was the stuff one might expect.  Things along the lines of 'OMG, this was so depressing.  I want to curl up and cry forever now' (I'm paraphrasing).  You know, the normal grief that readers go through when a beloved character passes into the literary beyond.  I have grieved for such characters myself (looking at you, David Eddings.  SPOILER ALERT: I still cry about Kurik.  Seriously.  That was an iced blade right in the feels).

Some of the stuff, however, were threats; promises of bodily harm and promises to do everything in the readers' power to destroy Ms. Roth's career.

It got so bad that author John Green (whom I adore, if you must know) weighed in on the raging twitter fire storm, saying things like:

"As a reader, I don't feel a story has an obligation to make me happy. I want stories to show me a bigger world than the one I know."

and:

"Basically, I would argue that books are not primarily in the wish fulfilment business. Okay. Rant over."

Incidentally, a reader wrote a blog post HERE about how John Green was wrong, noting:

"You don’t get to build up the promotional machine and pat all these passionate fans on the back for their grass roots support and then slap them in the face with criticism when they aren't loving all the decisions made by the author."

Um, yes.  Yes, you do.  But more on that later.

Ms. Roth is not the only author to receive threats.  Charlaine Harris, author of the Sookie Stackhouse series (you know, the series that served as the base for the television series True Blood).  When an early copy of the book was leaked online by a German fan, Ms. Harris ended up getting all kinds of seriously mess-up shit.  There was the usual milder stuff like, 'I can't believe the author would do that!  That sucks!' (paraphrasing again) to threats of suicide and death threats.  You can read all about these treats (sarcasm is not a typo) right HERE if you feel like you absolutely must.

As a writer who simply does not write happy tales (Ethan Cadfael: The Battle Prince is an exception, and even then, people die and friends part ways), I do have a vested interest.  In my defence, none of the endings I've written were a conscious choice I've made.  I've written about this before, but in all honesty, the way my imagination works is as if the ghost of the protagonist came to me in a dream, introduced themselves and then said, "And this is how I died."  Which I then relate to you good folk in prose.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

But I'm putting away my writerly hat for this.  Today, I am donning the robes of a reader; a very, very grateful reader.  And to those readers who somehow feel entitled enough to dictate a story to its creator to the point of personal threats when the author deviates....

The fuck, people?  Just whose story is this, anyway?

I get it.  People are invested.  I, as a reader, tend to get very invested in the books I read (provided that they're well written.  Poorly written books also give me a visceral reaction, but it's usually gagging).  When the aforementioned Kurik was killed in the final book of The Ellenium series by David Eddings, the first thing I did was shut the book, walk from my bedroom to my mother (who was sitting in the living room), and cry on her shoulder for a good five minutes.  This is absolute fact.  I mourned the death of that character for weeks and weeks.  It took about three weeks before I was ready to return to Sparkhawk's world now that it was devoid of Kurik.  When I cracked open that book again to continue reading, I did so through bitter, bitter tears.  I was twelve or thirteen at the time.  I'm tearing up a bit now just thinking about it (not even joking)!

Even still, I genuinely don't understand where this reader entitlement is coming from.  The Ellenium was not my story.  I was reading a fantastic series about amazing people and riding along with them like an invisible shadow; experiencing all they did, but unable to affect any of it.  Did I wish that Kurik didn't die?  You bet your arse!  I still wish to this day that he lived on, forever snarking about how idiotic the nobility are.  That didn't happen, and I'm going to have to live with it.

I suppose it's largely because I absolutely agree with John Green and, without knowing it (I only discovered Mr. Green a year or two ago), always have.  Books to me are invaluable treasures.  They are looking-glasses into other worlds, other times, other modes of being.  They exist to expand my horizons, challenge my courage, teach, comfort and chide.  I can engage in battle with vicious denizens of Hell, sail the high seas, ride the clouds, fall from the sky, swim in the darkest ocean, walk through fire all from the safety of my bed.  Wrapped warmly in blankets and with a comforting hot cup of tea (or a large glass of heady red wine, depending on my mood), I can bravely march through the wilderness in hail and sleet towards untold terrors.

Books have been my greatest teachers.  They have taught me empathy.  They have shown me that what is right is often not easy.  From an early age, I knew the value of courage, that courage is not bravado and that even the most insignificant creature in the world can become a hero if they have true courage.  Books have taught me about grief, and hopelessness, and despair, and that I can get through it all to see brighter days.

I treasure books for this reason (and a wee bit of much-needed escapism, but that's beside the point).  I was never under the delusion that I had any control over what happens in these books.  That was never for me to decide, which is another important lesson books taught me; sometimes some things are out of your control and it sucks giant hairy balls.... but you will survive it.

If a book affects you deeply, you have in your hands a good book.  Whether it makes you laugh or cry or rage, you have experienced something profound from the safety of your seat.  This is a rare privilege, denied to many, for which you should be extremely grateful.  If you are so involved in a story that you can call yourself a super-fan, then the author has done something right.

But being a super-fan entitles you only to your fandom, not the story itself.  Divergence is not your story.  It is Tris' story.  Sookie Stackhouse belongs only to Sookie Stackhouse.  It is her tale.  The Ellenium is Sparhawk's story.  None of these stories are yours.  They may not end the way you might like.  Fairytale endings they are not.  And you should grieve!  You should rage against the unjustness of the world these characters you loved inhabited.  But you should also understand that you did not make this world.  You were granted entry into it; a peek at something wondrous you would otherwise never have known.

So, perhaps, instead of threatening the authors of these amazing wonders that you were lucky enough to experience, you might, instead, consider expressing gratitude... you know, once you've stopped balling your eyes out.

Damn it, Kurik...

Ciao!

Good morning, Readers!

Alright, so I'm about to wade into some pretty heavy stuff regarding the complicated author-reader relationship.  And I'm going to do so in a way that will probably irritate readers no end, because I am firmly on the side of authors when it comes to this issue.

I suppose I am, therefore, quite lucky I'm an unknown at this juncture.  If I was better known, I'm sure I would garner a great deal of vitriol from readers who feel entitled; entitled to an author's time, entitled to an author's story, entitled to an author's most polite consideration (no matter how poorly the reader is behaving) ... or god help that author.  Their name and works will be slathered all over the internet in the least flattering light possible with the potential of ruining their careers.

Readers, I love you, but you are not entitled to any of it.

I've already discussed the issue of readers feeling entitled to an author's story in another blog post.  I think I will find it and post it as this month's Throwback Thursday, because it is well worth mentioning again.

Anyway, before I begin, I want you all to know that I am also a reader.  All writers are.  Or at least, they should be.  The difference here, I suppose, is that I've always been grateful to authors.

Reading was how I survived most of my young life.  People were awful.  My family was slowly falling apart.  I felt so alone, and so unloved, and so desperate.  Reading gave me a way to escape the fear, and the anger, and the pain.  It gave me the role models that my world was lacking.  It gave me insight into how to cope with all the hurt.  Reading taught me about the best in humanity at a time when I could only see the worst.

I am alive today because of books.

And I am so, so, so grateful that those books existed.  I am so grateful to the authors of those books for shining their light into my very dark world.

Perhaps it's because I am coming from a place of such deep gratitude that I feel very differently about the author-reader relationship.

Becoming an author has not changed how I feel about this relationship.  It has only served to confirm those feelings.  And those feelings are thus:

Readers, I love you, but you are not entitled to an author's time, an author's story, or an author's polite consideration.  You're not.  You're just not.

Let's examine the case of Chelsea Cain.  I am specifically rebutting this article, as it smacks of the entitlement that the author is trying chastise Ms. Cain for.

The issue is this, Ms. Cain took to social media to inform some readers in no uncertain terms that she was not their personal lackey, that Google is a thing that exists that readers can use, and that pestering her with inane questions where answers can easily be found elsewhere is inconsiderate and a waste of everyone's time.  This is the offending post:

Could this particular post do without the expletive?  Yes, I suppose.  But I swear so damned much that I'm really not affronted by a single appearance of any variant of the word 'fuck.'  And, to be sure, she's right.  Ms. Cain is an author, not your personal customer service representative.  If you are a fan of her work, wouldn't you rather she spend her time writing her next novel for you to enjoy, instead of reading inane questions the answers to which can literally be found by lifting one's own fingers?

Or shall you bombard her with these inane questions and then scream from the top of your lungs when it takes her a really long time to finish her next book?  Even though, you, and others like you, who feel entitled to ask this author all these silly questions, are the reason she is taking so damned long to finish her next book.

And yes, as the author of the article I'm referencing said themselves that she was right, though her delivery of this fact could have been worded better.  The author of the article still chastised Ms. Cain, noting that she did not have to reply to any of the inane questions.

No.  She needn't reply to these questions.  And I'll stake money on the fact that she didn't.  But even reading these questions, having to sift through this rubbish in order to find and respond to readers who do ask the good questions, the readers who deserve an answer takes a lot of time.  It's time consuming.  It's time better spent elsewhere.

An author's work is to write.  That's not all, these days.  Now, it's also to reach out to fans; plan and organise launches, tours and appearances.  It's being on social media, and answering letters, and selling yourself as if your work wasn't enough, when your work really ought to be enough.

What really, really, really ground my gears, though, was this particular gem of a quote from the article:

Fuck. Off.

Fuck right off.  And I'm saying this as a reader.

The privilege here belongs not to the author, but to the reader.  It is they who are privileged to be able to fall into a world of someone else's creation, a world that they love, a world which makes their lives that much richer.  It is they who are able to benefit from the extremely hard work of the author of the book they are currently privileged enough to be reading.

Writing a book, getting it out into the world, building a readership, planning, and making appearances, touring etc, is hard work.  It's exhausting work.  For most authors it is doubly so because they tend to be introverted, and any social engagement for an introvert is sometimes a monumental task.  Being a widely read author is a culmination of many, many years of often fruitless effort and no small amount of tears.  The fact that the author is widely read now is a testament not nearly so much to talent as it is to dedication and work ethic.

That is the very opposite of privilege.

Further, Ms. Cain works really hard for her readership.  She's dedicated time and effort to reach out to those who ask her (good) questions.  Not a lot of authors do that, and her readership is really fucking lucky that she does.  I admire her so much for this as I once had an author whose work I greatly admired write me back after I sent him a letter.  It made me deliriously happy.  For about a week, I was floating around with a dumb-arse grin on my face.  In fact, it made me feel so good that I credit that reply with my desire to be an author that reaches out her readership as much as possible.

I was incredibly fucking privileged to get a letter from my favourite author.  And Ms. Cain's readers are incredibly fucking privileged to follow an author who cares so damned much about them.

In short, it is not the author who is behaving like an entitled brat.

The publisher thought it best that Ms. Cain take down the offending post - which she did.  The author of the article noted that perhaps it was because they found the post rude and misplaced.  That's quite a leap in logic.  She was asked to take down the post after the idiotic backlash that followed, not before.  Further, they did not ask her to submit an apology for it.  From this, it would be far more logical to surmise that, despite them finding nothing wrong with the post, they asked her to remove it to avoid dealing with the idiotic reader backlash.

And it is an idiotic backlash because, readers, you are not entitled to an author's time.  You're just not.

The author of this article, however, is not satisfied with trying to crucify Ms. Cain for something he admits was justified.  No, he must also attack her for expressing her frustration when the high hopes she had for her latest release were not realised.   Despite having the best of everything, and despite her working her arse off, her latest release did not make the New York Times Bestseller List.

I'm not sure why this is even an issue.  Disappointment is a perfectly reasonable thing to feel when you think you have gold and it doesn't reach its potential as expected.  Frustration is absolutely justified when something you've worked so hard for fails to meet expectations.

The author of the article felt that this "entitled", "privileged" author was blaming her readership for the failure.  This is the post that brought him to his bizarre conclusion:

Umm.... alright?

So the blaming is where, precisely?  Because what I see is an exhausted author who put her heart and soul into a release expressing her disappointment that it didn't do as well as other books she has released.  She really thought she had gold with this one.  She's upset.  She's tired.  She just wants to write.

Why is this a point of contention?

Well, the fact of the matter is that it's not.  There is no contention here.  People are looking for demons where there are only shadows.

The author of the article then had the gall to give Ms. Cain this simple piece of advice:

Nice plug there, dude.  Was this whole article sparking outrage about nothing even remotely deserving of it just one giant advertisement for your services?

I kind of want to punch her right now.

Because of course, simply hiring someone to help you with your workload is the simplest, easiest thing to do.  As we all know, authors are simply rolling in money, laughing maniacally from our towers made of illegally obtained ivory and gold that we can all afford such assistants, with money left over to buy our butlers something nice for Christmas.

In case you didn't catch the sarcasm, we're not.  Unless you're an established big name, you're left out in the cold.  Mid-list authors must pay their own way the majority of the time.  Set up and interview with a television station in the next city over?  That's on you.  You pay your own hotel, your own petrol, your own everything.  The idea that publishers take care of all this for you is a giant fucking farce.  Going on a book tour?  Hope you can afford the plane ticket, bee-otch!

Writers are generally quite poor (most of us work another job in addition to writing, just to keep a roof over our heads) and quite stretched for time, which makes Ms. Cain's desire to personally reach out to her fans all the more impressive.

Before I became a writer, I never once assumed that being a writer was easy, that being a writer was a position of privilege, that writers should be so damned grateful that anyone cares about their work that they ought to give up any hope for the basic respects all human beings ought to expect.  Now that I am a writer, I know it's not easy.  I know that it is not a position of privilege, and while I am grateful for the incredibly supportive community I have currently surrounding me, I know that I am still worthy of basic respect, and I intend to enforce that throughout my career.

Don't come crying to me about 'privileged' writers.  All I will do is hold up a mirror so that you will know the true face of entitlement.

Well, that was far longer than I had planned.  I have to go write a story now.

Ciao!

(Editied, as I was informed that Tez Miller was, in fact, of the feminine persuasion.  Oops!  Thanks, Naomi for pointing that out!)

Good morning, Readers!

I woke up this morning with gritty eyes and feeling totally exhausted, both sure signs that I did not get enough sleep last night.  There is a good reason for that.

I was up late editing the YouTube video I had promised you all yesterday.  I was up late editing the YouTube video because I had forgotten all about it until about 11:30 at night.  I was all showered and prepared for sleep when the realisation hit me.  So, I got back up and did what I promised I would do.

This is the resulting video.  Don't judge me, I was tired.

I really need to come up with a graphic for the thumbnail of my reading videos.  Sigh.

As a total aside, I love how I'm finally able to embed YouTube videos on my blog!  My other site wouldn't let me, which is one of the major reasons I switched over.

In any case, it's up and available for you to listen to.  I was really nervous, even though there were only three other people there and one of them was my mother.  I almost cried at the end of my reading, and I did tear up earlier during the reading of our night's writing challenge.  Because nerves.  Sigh.  Yup, Thirty-years-old and I still cry in public.

I'm going to go die quietly of embarrassment over here.

In other news, writing went really well yesterday.  While I didn't quite hit my 3 000 word goal, I did manage quite close to that (2 433) and am not too shy to say that I'm proud of myself.  Human just might get finished this year after all.  I'm aiming for a similar experience today.

On that note, I must go and write.

Ciao!