Rion posted this piece on entitlement yesterday, which I found interesting: what do artists owe their fans?
And ri has moved the Inspiration posts to the blog, so they are more readily accessible: here’s Wednesday‘s.
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I’m not sure artists owe their fans anything more than basic human courtesy (and not even that, if a particular fan violates it first). There’s something niggling around in the back of my head about “and if they continue producing art, they owe it to themselves, even more than their fans, to produce *good* art that means something to the artist.”
I have similar feelings on the “produce good art…” but owe is a touchy word. I mean, I feel let down that R.R. Martin’s latest ASOIaF book wasn’t as good as the first few, and I feel he rushed it – but he doesn’t owe better work to me; I’m just less likely to buy his work if it stays crappier.
*nods* And that’s a part of why I think the artist owes it to himself or herself, more than to the fans.
I’d say the artist owes it to their fans not to lie to them or make them promises they don’t keep. For example, GRRM no longer puts expected print dates on his books and that is good. The only thing that legitimately frustrates me about authors is if they know they consistently miss their deadlines by three years and don’t just. Extend their deadlines by three years.
Yeah, that was the frustration with RR Martin, too.