Every day at 4:00 CST, we’ll tally the donations. And if people have ponied up and demanded I write more of book 3, I’ll give up my gaming time and put in another three hours above and beyond my normal writing time for the day.
What’s more, I’ll stream my writing session on Twitch.
If the will of the people is that I play Fallout 4, I’ll do a live stream of that instead. Since I haven’t gamed in a while, I expect the result will either be the live stream equivalent of riding a unicorn made entirely of orgasms. Or, if my mad skillz have atrophied, it might be an embarrassing train wreck as I’m endlessly killed by rats in the basement of whatever inn we start the adventure in.
Pat Rothfuss has some fans eagerly awaiting the third book in his Kingkiller trilogy. Some lean more heavily towards eager than awaiting. Some are just dicks. He’s written a great post about his life and balancing that with work on Book 3 and given fans the chance to decide (albeit for a limited time) how he spends his time, writing Book 3 or playing Fallout 4, and helping end hunger and poverty in the process.
To throw in my tuppence on reader entitlement, Neil Gaiman summed it up best with:
George R.R. Martin is not your bitch.
But even beyond that if Pat didn’t do panels at conventions I would never have read Declare by Tim Powers, the book that reinvigorated my love of reading, if he didn’t give talks in cafes I would never have re-read my Pratchetts this year, if he didn’t do Acq Inc I wouldn’t now have a collection of D&D manuals that I adore, if I hadn’t heard him talk about world-building I’d wouldn’t have started drawing again, and #Ootsays never fails to make me laugh or smile.
And Pat doesn’t have to do any of that. I’m no more entitled to any of that than I am to Book 3 but I’m so glad he does it. And as long as he enjoys doing those things and I enjoy watching and reading them, I will. And if he decides he doesn’t want to do those things then that’s his call, he doesn’t owe them to me (or anyone). No more than he owes anyone Book 3.
