pith
in
lkh_lashouts
More fallout from "Dear Negative Reader"
Link: http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/004776.html
Hamilton wasn't saying "if you don't like my books, don't buy them," she was saying "stop buying my books, because you're not worthy of them," which is an entirely different thing altogether. I think what Hamilton wants out of this (and which I'm fairly sure she would deny, because that's what passive-aggressiveness is all about) is for those complaining fans to recoil in horror at the suggestion that their mistress has deemed them unworthy of her paradise, realign their brains to better understand Hamilton's worldview, and dive back in again, only this time finally getting her genius. It's that whole daring someone to go and relying on the fact they won't thing. If the fans Hamilton's addressing in her entry actually said "okay, I'm gone," I suspect her head would pop right off.
Bingo. She's counting on the fact that that haters/anti-fans/whatever people are calling us this week are generally well-read and well-educated, so we get vexed when people say we aren't capable of reading their work. Thus, to prove them wrong, we will read it and criticise. Yes, that gives us the ammo to make an even more scathing attack, but we're still lining her wallet in the process, unless we steal the book (Note: LKH_Lashouts does not advocate thievery, etc.), get it from the library (and even that can skew numbers in her favour), or borrow it from a friend.
I doubt all of the fans disappointed in Hamilton's work at this point fit into that category [i.e., screechy monkeys], however; I suspect most of them are just fans who aren't quite willing to give up on the series and a writer whose work they've admired.
Maybe we should get him to write our mission statement. He does a much better job than I do.
Who is going to be the adult in the artist-audience relationship? Ideally, of course, you're both adults -- you as the artist give your best effort, and then the audience treats your work critically but fairly and doesn't hold it against you that you're not perfect. But in the case where it turns out that only one of you is going to get to be an adult, as the artist you should damn well try to make sure that the adult in the relationship is you. This is where Hamilton fell down on the job; her pissy little passive-aggressive rant was the sort of foot-stamping you expect from a 8-year-old being told she can't have a pony, not a 40-something professional with a couple dozen books to her credit.
Granted, I doubt many people would consider us a "mature" community, but she still had the opportunity to be "the bigger person", and say something as simple as "The books have changed. I'm sorry if you don't like it, but I have to write books I believe in." That's a lot easier to take as a reader than "you can't understand my vision, bitches".
Hal is entirely right that an author can quite reasonably say "if you don't like my work, don't keep buying it." I do think that if one actually says it, however, one should actually mean it. I also think one should say it in such a way that one doesn't also shit all over the people to whom you are giving your advice. Because when you do it says something about you. What it says isn't actually very pleasant.
Well said, and very true. If she wants to be criticized fairly, perhaps she should do the same in turn.
Hamilton wasn't saying "if you don't like my books, don't buy them," she was saying "stop buying my books, because you're not worthy of them," which is an entirely different thing altogether. I think what Hamilton wants out of this (and which I'm fairly sure she would deny, because that's what passive-aggressiveness is all about) is for those complaining fans to recoil in horror at the suggestion that their mistress has deemed them unworthy of her paradise, realign their brains to better understand Hamilton's worldview, and dive back in again, only this time finally getting her genius. It's that whole daring someone to go and relying on the fact they won't thing. If the fans Hamilton's addressing in her entry actually said "okay, I'm gone," I suspect her head would pop right off.
Bingo. She's counting on the fact that that haters/anti-fans/whatever people are calling us this week are generally well-read and well-educated, so we get vexed when people say we aren't capable of reading their work. Thus, to prove them wrong, we will read it and criticise. Yes, that gives us the ammo to make an even more scathing attack, but we're still lining her wallet in the process, unless we steal the book (Note: LKH_Lashouts does not advocate thievery, etc.), get it from the library (and even that can skew numbers in her favour), or borrow it from a friend.
I doubt all of the fans disappointed in Hamilton's work at this point fit into that category [i.e., screechy monkeys], however; I suspect most of them are just fans who aren't quite willing to give up on the series and a writer whose work they've admired.
Maybe we should get him to write our mission statement. He does a much better job than I do.
Who is going to be the adult in the artist-audience relationship? Ideally, of course, you're both adults -- you as the artist give your best effort, and then the audience treats your work critically but fairly and doesn't hold it against you that you're not perfect. But in the case where it turns out that only one of you is going to get to be an adult, as the artist you should damn well try to make sure that the adult in the relationship is you. This is where Hamilton fell down on the job; her pissy little passive-aggressive rant was the sort of foot-stamping you expect from a 8-year-old being told she can't have a pony, not a 40-something professional with a couple dozen books to her credit.
Granted, I doubt many people would consider us a "mature" community, but she still had the opportunity to be "the bigger person", and say something as simple as "The books have changed. I'm sorry if you don't like it, but I have to write books I believe in." That's a lot easier to take as a reader than "you can't understand my vision, bitches".
Hal is entirely right that an author can quite reasonably say "if you don't like my work, don't keep buying it." I do think that if one actually says it, however, one should actually mean it. I also think one should say it in such a way that one doesn't also shit all over the people to whom you are giving your advice. Because when you do it says something about you. What it says isn't actually very pleasant.
Well said, and very true. If she wants to be criticized fairly, perhaps she should do the same in turn.