Writers who blog and then some

May 08

Cruising along the LiteraryMinded blog the other day, I found a link to this Globe and Mail article by Guy Gavriel Kay. In a nutshell, Kay considers how blogging has affected the writer-reader relationship. Case in point was fantasy writer George R.R. Martin, author of the successful seven-volume series A Song of Ice and Fire and irregular blogger (http://grrm.livejournal.com/). Apparently, Martin’s fans had been following him avidly via his site, however things quickly turned sour when the pub date for the next instalment A Dance With Dragons was missed and the gap between books approached the five year mark. A ‘rising tide of venom’ was apparently unleashed by impatient fans, who complained that Martin was wasting time with soccer games, holidays and miniature swords when in fact he should have been working hard on the next book. They were adamant that he should not ‘pull a Robert Jordan’ on them (well-known author of the Wheel of Time series who died of illness before finishing the last book). Martin was, understandably, peeved – ‘Maybe it's okay if I take a leak once in a while?’ he shot back.

According to Kay, this is an example of how the dynamic between authors and readers has been significantly changed: ‘These days, writers invite personal involvement and intensity from their readers. In direct proportion to the way in which they share their personalities… their everyday lives, their football teams and word counts, their partners and children and cats, it encourages in readers a sense of personal connection and access, and thus an entitlement to comment, complain, recommend cat food, feel betrayed, shriek invective, issue demands.’

Blogging is everywhere now – not just among authors but with anyone who has a mind to do it. And it is about many things: there is an element of self-promotion yes, but it can also be addictive, fun and cathartic (rather like an on-line diary). I can see why writers (like everyone else) are jumping on the bandwagon. Marketing aside, posts can be short, sharp, jokey, ranty or warm – there are no censors and no editors. Blogging is another kind of creative outlet, one that is markedly different from the hours spent slaving over the perfect paragraph, which will then be edited, copyedited and proofed in the weeks that follow. (There is, however, also an argument that blogging kills your fiction – Michael Chabon and his wife gave voice to it here).

The flipside of this is that fans now have an easy opportunity to express their frustrations in a very public way. Comments can be posted anonymously or under another name and of course this takes away a certain level of restraint. You may not be willing to confront your favourite writer at a festival and tell them to sod off home and get cracking on their next book, but what are a few minutes spent online letting all fly in caps and italics? I definitely sympathise with writers being hassled by rabid fans but unfortunately I think that this comes with the territory. The fact is there are no rules about what you can and can’t say on the net – that is its great appeal. And, as Kay says, blogging is only likely to continue to grow as a form of communication, so the lines between authors and their readers are likely to grow all the more blurry.

Of course, writers could always pull a Patricia Cornwell and use this to their advantage. Disheartened by the negative reviews of her latest book on Amazon.com, she blogged urging her fans to register with amazon and restore the balance: ‘Right now I need my supporters. I am not asking you to write anything you do not mean. But why should hateful people be the only ones heard?’

JA

Our Friends

• Overland
• Alien Onion
• Ampersand Duck
• Andrew McDonald
• A Pair of Ragged Claws
• Arts Victoria
• Australia Council for the Arts
• Ben Eltham
• Bookshow blog
• CAL
• City of Tongues
• Crikey
• darkly wise, rudely great
• David Astle
• Elmo Keep Does Stuff
• The Ember
• Fly the Falcon blog
• Going Down Swinging
• Griffith Review
• Hackpacker
• Harvest
• HEAT
• Island
• Killings blog
• Literary Minded
• Lorraine Crescent
• Lynden Barber
• Mandy Ord
• Marcus Westbury
• Matilda
• Meanland
• Melbourne University Publishing
• Mel Campbell
• The Monthly
• Musings of an Inappropriate Woman
• Oslo Davis
• Paul Callaghan
• Read, Think, Write
• Sleepers Publishing
• Sorrow at Sills Bend
• SPLOG
• Tom Cho
• Virgule
• Wet Ink
• Wheeler Centre

Comments