Comment From A LKH Fangirl

[zgirl714.livejournal.com]

Um. Snotty, much? Jeez. How many best-sellers and devoted fans do you have? Hmmm. Let me guess. None? Good grief. The arrogance of youth is just astonishing. Once you’ve got over a dozen books on international best-seller lists then feel free to critique your heart out. But this is clearly a case of "Those who can, do. But those who can’t, sit around and b*tch about those who do." Ms. Hamilton’s stories remain cutting edge. And if you did a random check of the top 50 books on the NYT List, you’d find typos galore. It’s certainly not limited to laurell K. Hamilton novels. Reading is about pleasuring the mind, not hunting down misplaced punctuation. If it causes an emotional repsonse, then it’s a success. Hyper-focusing and being "nit-picky" is ridiculous. Go write the kind of literary perfection you so obviously expect and then come back and trash talk Ms. Hamilton.

That is the comment from Elizabeth on this post.

Comments

[freyalorelei.livejournal.com]

If it causes an emotional response, it's a success.

Funny, the last time I looked disgust, revulsion, anger and contempt were all emotional responses. Just because something causes strong feelings does NOT mean it is GOOD.

The "how many bestsellers do YOU have? Hmmmmmm?" response is just laughable. Success does not automatically grant complete immunity from criticism.

And hon? Hyper-focusing and nitpicking is WHAT MAKES BOOKS PUBLISHABLE. If you just had editors give the manuscript a once-over and go "Yeah, whatever, looks good! *thumbs-up*", then I bet you 99% of what's on the shelves would be ILLEGIBLE. And criticism after the fact is valuable too...it lets the author know their weaknesses and what needs improving in the future.

I like her quota, too...that it can't just be ONE book on the bestseller list, no, it needs to be a DOZEN! YEA!* Anything less than that and you're not a REAL author! Six books? Pshaw. LKH > JANE AUSTEN!

...okay, I just made myself a little sick typing that. :p


*To quote The Infallible Leader Herself.

[zgirl714.livejournal.com]

I know. And your last statement makes me kind of pukey too, but that is no doubt what Elizabeth thinks.

There are loads of hacks who sell a ton of books *cough*LKH*cough*, but do they have the skill of a Andre Dubus? No.