• jballs@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    11 months ago

    I’m reading a short book by Patrick Rothfuss (The Narrow Road Between Desires). This dude is such a notoriously slow writer that it drives me crazy. He had the audacity to do an author’s introduction where he said this was an existing story of his, but he added 15k words to it. I’m like… what is that, a couple weeks? Write faster, you bastard!

    • TheActualDevil@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      11 months ago

      And it’s not like this kind of attitude online has in any way made him self-conscious and led to us most likely never getting the conclusion to his series.

      • jballs@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        11 months ago

        I love the idea of Rothfuss planning all day, coming up with the perfect next chapter in his life’s work, knowing just how to wrap up the intricate threads he’s woven. Then he boots up his laptop, slowly stretches and cracks his fingers. Just before he opens up his word processor to record his beautifully crafted prose, he decides to check out Lemmy for a few minutes. Then he comes across a random comment of mine saying how his fans are frustrated at his pace of writing, and just goes:

        • TheActualDevil@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          11 months ago

          “I absolutely care about finishing the book… I feel bad about [not giving people what they want] all the time. It’s one of the things that’s fucking me up, I’m in a lot of therapy right now… I went from fiddling around with a book that I just liked to work on and I knew would never be published… then it’s like 'hey a million people are disappointed in you because they want this book. It’s not a great feeling. … If I didn’t care about the book, you’d have it by now… I owe everyone who loved the book something beautiful”

          https://www.reddit.com/r/KingkillerChronicle/comments/k52gcz/pat_on_how_much_he_cares_about_finishing_book_3/

          Literally, the pressure makes it harder for him to make the book he thinks the fans deserve.

          • jballs@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            11 months ago

            Exactly dude. He’s sold 10,000,000+ books and the pressure is clearly too much for him. And while we can’t unsell those books for him, the best we can do is spread the word far and wide that Patrick Rothfuss writes like old people fuck. If we each do our best to discourage new fans from jumping on the hype train, we just might have a shot at getting the 3rd Kingkiller Chronicles book before we die.