Neil Gaiman: "George R.R. Martin is not your b!tch!"

[Wiggum]

Didn't know we all of sudden became prissies at the use of the word b!tch.

Amen.

I rarely use that term around females, but I have called all of my male friends it.

Who gives a crap?

And heaven forbid that the man might have expressed emotion, with colorful words, about his opinion.

Two movie quotes:

"I'm surrounded by A**holes!"

and

"Gee, thanks, Dave. Bang-up job so far. Extortion, coercion. You'll pardon me if I ask you to kiss my pucker."




Look, it's a Gaiman's opinion, which I personally feel is valid. If it ain't up to your snuff, understood. But if Rodin was still planning sculptures, or if Monet was still painting, I wouldn't be hounding them about it.

 

[Boaz]

There is a time and place for swearing. If I were in the public eye, I don't think I'd choose to swear at an honest, if misguided fan. But that's just me, Mr. Perfect.

 

[dustinzgirl]

I only get upset at cussing if its around my kids or grandparents. Other than that, I cuss like a sailor. I have a terrible potty mouth. Especially when I'm dying ever four seconds on Dead Space playing insanity level. Its not defeat-able.

 

[viZion]

Didn't know we all of sudden became prissies at the use of the word b!tch.

Hm, I'm guessing you guys are ignoring my points on purpose or I'm just not clear enough. I'm not offended by Gaiman's response or his use of language. No one in this thread has claimed to be offended so I don't see why the above "you're all wussies/prissies" retort keeps coming up. Gaiman completely overreacted to the email that he posted. That's all I'm saying. Forget the language. I only thought it was stupid that his fans got *excited* that he used a "bad" word. My other point is that if he wanted to go off I'm sure he could have chosen a much worse email to rip apart. I'd probably be on his side then. You gotta know where to pick your fights.

"John Romero's about to make you his bitch" was way funnier anyway .

 

[dustinzgirl]

NG didn't actually call anyone a b word.

He said that GRRM is not the readers b word.

 

[The Procrastinator]

Well well, so writers are human after all? Who'da thunk it?

Btw I don't think Mr Gaiman fully answered the first part of question one because it does not need to be answered. "Scrutinising the actions of an artist..." Hands up who can see the inherent contradiction in this phrase.

Sure Gaiman overreacted a tad. But I have to say, in his shoes, who wouldn't? There's probably been a million times when he's pulled his head in and not said what he thought when presented with the demands of immature fans (those comments...cripes...). But you can't be the soul of discretion all the time, even if you do take on some sort of public role. Its very complex, this whole fan dementia and a writer's response to it.

The way those fans foam at the mouth is self-defeating. Maybe they'll work that out one day.

 

[KESpires]

As to the comments in this thread that GRRM did indeed enter into a contract with his fans when he published A Game of Thrones:

I don't see how this holds up. No one is forcing anyone to read the earlier books in A Song of Ice and Fire. George R. R. Martin is writing a story. That story is long. But it also possible that he might not finish that story. As a matter of fact, it is looking increasingly possible given the amount of story left to tell and the amount of time he is taking in writing it. It is up to us whether we involve ourselves in reading his works. The only person/entity that Martin has a contract with is his publisher. We the fans can only hope that he'll choose to continue writing the series we like. He's under no obligation to anyone except his publisher.

Personally, if I recieved the kind of emails that he or Patrick Rothfuss get, you'd get much more heated responses from me.

As for Neil overreacting... not hardly. He's being honest. GRRM is not anyone's writer monkey. He'll write the stories that move him. If you like his WRITING then you'll be excited no matter what he writes. If you only like A Song of Ice and Fire and aren't interested in any works he produces that don't fall into that universe, then you're just SOL.

Still, I understand why fans are frustrated. It is a wonderful story and I'm eager to read the next one myself. If he never writes it it won't be the end of the world.

Frankly, he must be getting the odd letter of encouragement. If I got letters like he gets I'd have told everyone where they can go and what they can do when they get there. I'll write it whenever I ******* feel like it.

 

[The Imp]

As to the comments in this thread that GRRM did indeed enter into a contract with his fans when he published A Game of Thrones:

I don't see how this holds up. No one is forcing anyone to read the earlier books in A Song of Ice and Fire. George R. R. Martin is writing a story. That story is long. But it also possible that he might not finish that story. As a matter of fact, it is looking increasingly possible given the amount of story left to tell and the amount of time he is taking in writing it. It is up to us whether we involve ourselves in reading his works. The only person/entity that Martin has a contract with is his publisher. We the fans can only hope that he'll choose to continue writing the series we like. He's under no obligation to anyone except his publisher.

I don't know about you, but I would NEVER start a series that wasn't completed and had no chance of BEING completed, either because the author died, or abandoned it, or whatever. I guess my brain is wired in such a way that I require a sense of completion. I know this about myself, and when I have an option, I'll always choose a course of action that allows for a conclusion.

When GRRM published AGOT he made it clear that it was part of a series. Implicit in saying that it was a series was the notion that it would be completed. Had he said "I'm publishing the first book, but in all honesty, I don't know if there will be any others" I would have chosen not to read AGOT.

The "contract" isn't a legally binding one, but in a sense, he's been commissioned to write new books through the sales of existing books. If AGOT had been released and had sold 2500 copies we wouldn't be having this conversation. I have no numbers to back this up, but my guess is that the fan base of ASOIAF has grown with the release of each book. Many of those people EXPECT the series to be concluded, and GRRM knows this.

Again, no one (I hope) expects GRRM to lock himself in a room and do nothing else but ASOIAF. Fans know that writers have "blocks" at times and books get delayed. All THIS fan is asking is that he's working on the series in the best way that he can.

 

[j d worthington]

I don't know about you, but I would NEVER start a series that wasn't completed and had no chance of BEING completed, either because the author died, or abandoned it, or whatever. I guess my brain is wired in such a way that I require a sense of completion. I know this about myself, and when I have an option, I'll always choose a course of action that allows for a conclusion.

Slightly off-topic (though related): This being the case, you're missing out on some of the best stuff out there, as many, if not most, of the really ambitious projects or sets never are finished, whether it be Balzac's Comédie humaine, Tolkien's tales of Middle-earth, E. R. Eddison's Zimiamvia books (along with The Worm Ouroboros), or the Durants' History of Civilization (which only made it through the Napoleonic Era before they died, despite their working on it for half a century).

It's your choice, of course, but I'd urge you to explore (and quite possibly enjoy) the numerous unfinished sequences out there. Like life, you'll come in on a story which has been going on for a long time, and you won't see the end, but the journey in-between is well worth the risk....

As for the post by Gaiman... while I find the use of the term in this context to be in somewhat poor taste, I can understand the reasons for it; and if you think that this is anything, try reading Harlan Ellison's "You Don't Know Me, I Don't Know You", originally published as part of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction's Harlan Ellison issue (July 1977), and later reprinted in his collection of essays, Sleepless Nights in the Procrustean Bed (1984); I think Ellison answers the point quite thoroughly there....

 

[The Judge]

I don't know about you, but I would NEVER start a series that wasn't completed and had no chance of BEING completed, either because the author died, or abandoned it, or whatever. I guess my brain is wired in such a way that I require a sense of completion. I know this about myself, and when I have an option, I'll always choose a course of action that allows for a conclusion.

When GRRM published AGOT he made it clear that it was part of a series. Implicit in saying that it was a series was the notion that it would be completed. Had he said "I'm publishing the first book, but in all honesty, I don't know if there will be any others" I would have chosen not to read AGOT.

The "contract" isn't a legally binding one, but in a sense, he's been commissioned to write new books through the sales of existing books. If AGOT had been released and had sold 2500 copies we wouldn't be having this conversation. I have no numbers to back this up, but my guess is that the fan base of ASOIAF has grown with the release of each book. Many of those people EXPECT the series to be concluded, and GRRM knows this.

But, with respect, when you picked up AGOT you had no idea that he would ever finish the series. He could have been struck dead the following day, or permanently incapacitated, or simply have decided he'd had enough of that type of book and he wanted to write chick-lit. If you believe that you can only read complete series, you should perhaps have waited for him to finish and then read all of them together.

As for the idea that there is some kind of moral contract, 'I've bought so many books of yours therefore you have to continue writing this particular series', you won't be getting that one past a lawyer any day soon. It's as logical as him saying 'You bought my first book, therefore I thought I could make a living at this, so I've given up my day job and acted to my detriment by your implied promise to support me, so now you've got to buy everything I write from here on in.' The contract is to buy a book. Full stop. It doesn't matter what your expectations are. He has no duty, moral, legal, ethical or whatever, to write another word. Just as you have no duty to read another word he writes.

And I can't help feeling that he might actually get on better if he wasn't being bugged by continual demands.

J

 

[Werthead]

The truth of the matter is, GRRM did in fact enter into a contract with people who began reading ASOIAF. Why? The answer is simple, even though no one ever mentions it. Had he been publishing stand-alone novels no one would be saying a word about his next book. There might be some that would be complaining that he hadn't written anything but what would eventually happen would be he'd become a memory and his popularity would diminish.

I think there is an unwritten obligation from the writer of a series to ensure the series is finished to the best of their ability. However, timescale is not a factor in this obligation, and as I have said many times before, the reason why ADWD seems to be generating far more heat than AFFC even though AFFC took a lot longer to come out than we have waited for ADWD so far, is that there was an assumption that ADWD would come out faster because of GRRM's comments in the afterword.

The primary problem with ADWD is that GRRM's desire to get the book out ASAP is in conflict with his desire to make it the best book possible. And he is in a position where he can and will delay the book for three years or even junk it and start again from scratch (as he did on AFFC) in order to make the best book possible. The question the fans then must answer is do they want some rushed piece of garbage tomorrow or a very good book in three years' time? You can certainly argue that over-perfectionism is as much a problem, maybe even a bigger problem, as rushing a work, and no doubt the fact that ASoS is regarded as the best book in the series but took the least amount of time to write will be raised, but the final equation is that the author believed that he needed to take this extra time to make ADWD the best it could be.

Or to put it another way no matter how good Brandon Sanderson's final three Wheel of Time books are, the fact that Crossroads of Twilight is a disastrous dog of a novel will remain forever, and no-one today gives a flying toss that it took only two years to come out.

 

[Eulalia]

I think there is a world of difference between being called a bitch and the use of the word in an expressive way that is not directed at a real person. I would be offended, most like, if I were called that in real life, and this message board has rules against it, so don't try it!

Shakespeare has a pretty good reputation, and he used bitch, whoreson, *******, and numerous words that were double entendre's for genitalia and sexual acts! He still addresses many moral and existential questions in his plays. He didn't like Puritans...

I don't think GRRM has any obligation to us! I just hope it all works out. Meanwhile we can speculate.

 

[The Imp]

I think there is an unwritten obligation from the writer of a series to ensure the series is finished to the best of their ability. However, timescale is not a factor in this obligation, and as I have said many times before, the reason why ADWD seems to be generating far more heat than AFFC even though AFFC took a lot longer to come out than we have waited for ADWD so far, is that there was an assumption that ADWD would come out faster because of GRRM's comments in the afterword.

The primary problem with ADWD is that GRRM's desire to get the book out ASAP is in conflict with his desire to make it the best book possible. And he is in a position where he can and will delay the book for three years or even junk it and start again from scratch (as he did on AFFC) in order to make the best book possible. The question the fans then must answer is do they want some rushed piece of garbage tomorrow or a very good book in three years' time? You can certainly argue that over-perfectionism is as much a problem, maybe even a bigger problem, as rushing a work, and no doubt the fact that ASoS is regarded as the best book in the series but took the least amount of time to write will be raised, but the final equation is that the author believed that he needed to take this extra time to make ADWD the best it could be.

Or to put it another way no matter how good Brandon Sanderson's final three Wheel of Time books are, the fact that Crossroads of Twilight is a disastrous dog of a novel will remain forever, and no-one today gives a flying toss that it took only two years to come out.

The real problem occurred to me as I was reading your response.

GRRM has made himself accessible to his readers. He has a website where he posts news regularly. He blogs. He tours. in other words, he has et up an expectation that says he'll communicate with his readers. He's opened his life to people and in turn, those same people have expected communication about ADWD.

I think the hardest thing about waiting for ADWD has been not knowing how far away it is. I'd love it if he updated maybe once a month. I know he used to update more often and stopped becuase of grief he was getting. I think if he was to go back to doing that a lot of the "talk" would die down.

 

[viZion]

GRRM has made himself accessible to his readers. He has a website where he posts news regularly. He blogs. He tours. in other words, he has et up an expectation that says he'll communicate with his readers. He's opened his life to people and in turn, those same people have expected communication about ADWD.

Ah ha! And that's the part of the reader's question to Gaiman that I wish Gaiman had answered! The one part he doesn't *really* address at all. "GRRM is not your bitch" is not really an answer. I bet even the guy who wrote the email knows that Martin isn't his servant. But it would be interesting to hear about how the internet has changed communication with fans who now have near instant access to authors. If this were 1985 people would still be complaining but mostly to their friends. Maybe some people would *write* a letter (remember those?). The author might read those letters and get mad but we'd most likely never hear about it. Should Martin throw in a few sentences about ADWD every now and then? How can you expect people to act rationally in a case like this? Why even open up your blog to comments at all? Gaiman could have covered all of that and more with that first question. Oh well.

 

[KESpires]

Gaiman did answer it.

Am I expected too much in wanting GRRM to post about ADWD?

GRRM is not your bitch. Nuff said.

 

[viZion]

Gaiman did answer it.

Am I expected too much in wanting GRRM to post about ADWD?

GRRM is not your bitch. Nuff said.

Yeah, I get it. Neil Gaiman is tough and cool and Martin can take 20 years or never to finish ADWD or any other book. I'm not trying to discuss that. Here, I'll try again: Is Martin or any other author partially at fault by making themselves so open and accessible and then *expecting* people not to mention what they are most interested in (ADWD in Martin's case, some other book in Rothfuss' case)? If all they want to talk about is football, politics, etc then why make a blog under their own name? Because if they used a fake name no one would read their blog? So that does mean they thrive on the audience attention? And if they thrive on that audience attention can they really be upset that the audience would like some of their own needs met? If it's so upsetting that people won't stop mentioning the next damn book AND they must have a blog under their own name then why not just close the blog to all comments? Does that go back to the thriving on audience attention? Hell, just install a hit counter!

 

[The Judge]

Didn't know we all of sudden became prissies at the use of the word b!tch.

Not sure if this was directed at my earlier comment. If so, there's an misunderstanding of what I was trying to say. No doubt my fault for not explaining properly.

I have no problem with him using the word as a term of abuse. I have few problems with swearing of any kind, though I think its constant use is a sign of a deeper malaise.

What I find offensive is that there is a level of misogyny amongst some men that allows such a specifically sexual term of abuse to become synonymous with 'woman' (picking up the idea of servitude en route) and that this has spread among those who would probably not regard themselves as misogynists. I have the same concern over the word 'whore' no matter how it is spelled or pronounced. After all, if Gaiman had used a racial term of abuse and said 'GRRM is not your ni**er' would people be getting excited at the thought of wearing the T shirt and/or asking when we got so prissy over the use of the word? I think not.

J

Actually, thinking about it, I can imagine that there would be some people lining up to buy the T shirt.

 

[The Judge]

ViZion - I think you've hit the nail on the head. It's the deliberate stoking of interest in the writer, for entirely understandable reasons, and the failure to manage expectations, which has aggravated the problem.

J

 

[KESpires]

No it isn't at all.

It is the, apparently, overly optimistic hope that he can converse with his audience and the entire conversation not center around A Dance with Dragons. He likes football. He wants to talk about football. Is it too much to expect that his audience can stop salivating over the next book, or stop swearing that he shouldn't care about the Giants because that means he isn't writing?

I think he just hopes and expects that most of his audience is going to be reasonable and be able to discuss the other things.

After all, he is editing a series, contributing and editing other anthologies, has a home life and other interests he'd like to discuss.

Point in fact, he is George R. R. Martin, not Guy Who Writes A Song of Ice and Fire. It is possible to be a three dimensional human being and still write a fantasy series. I swear I think some fans believe that once you put words down that you plan to finish in a later book you transform and all you do is eat, sleep, and breath writing the next book.

Apparently he is being overly optimistic if some people expect his blog to be about nothing except updates. I don't think it has anything to do with him not living up to the expectations of making himself accessible.


All this is really a moot point in any case because he HAS updated about ADWD. He's said that he's writing it. It'll be finished at some point and his blog will be the first place he writes about it.

What is the point, as the Imp suggested, of continual updates? It'd just be continual disappointment. It also wouldn't help his writing either because he'd get emails like, "You're spending all that time writing Tyrion? I want more Sansa!" It'd mar actual writing process. Fans would be even more angry because they'd get little snippets of hope. "Finished a Sandor chapter today." Followed by, "Scrapped yesterday's work. Upon rereading it didn't work."

Jesus, let the man write AND half a life AND have a relationship with his fans.

 

[HareBrain]

It is the, apparently, overly optimistic hope that he can converse with his audience and the entire conversation not center around A Dance with Dragons. He likes football. He wants to talk about football. Is it too much to expect that his audience can stop salivating over the next book, or stop swearing that he shouldn't care about the Giants because that means he isn't writing?

Jesus, let the man write AND half a life AND have a relationship with his fans.

Ah yes, his "relationship" with his fans. He writes about having a cold in a style utterly untouched by any creativity. He then receives ten hundredweight of replies of overwhelming banality, all written by people with nothing actually to say, but who want to pretend they're in personal contact with the author of their favourite books. Is this a relationship anyone without serious self-esteem issues would really want? I have a more fulfilling relationship with the bacteria on my kitchen wash-sponge. If I'm ever in any danger of writing anything that would garner me legions of fans (and I thank the inventor of the infinite-universes therory of parallel worlds for giving me hope in this) I'm going to try my damnedest to persude my publisher that there might be extra sales in keeping my identity a closely guarded secret, or at least pretending I'm allergic to the internet.

I'm with viZion on this. In fact, since we in the UK are about to execute all our politicians, I would urge him (/her?) to run for Parliament at the next election. We need people with sense.