A Quote by W. G. Sebald
Comparing oneself with one's fellow writers is a bad idea. I would not review a fellow writer unless I had something terribly positive to say.
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Writers don't often say anything that readers don't already know, unless its a news story. A writer's greatest pleasure is revealing to people things they knew but did not know they knew. Or did not realize everyone else knew, too. This produces a warm sense of fellow feeling and is the best a writer can do.
The most satisfactory thing in all this earthly life is to be able to serve our fellow-beings-first, those who are bound to us by ties of love, then the wider circle of fellow-townsmen, fellow-countrymen, or fellow-men. To be of service is a solid foundation for contentment in this world.
I've always believed that if you had a fellow who works 150 percent of the time, he's going to beat a fellow who works something less than that.
Writers are funny about reviews: when they get a good one they ignore it-- but when they get a bad review they never forget it. Every writer I know is the same way: you get a hundred good reviews, and one bad, andyou remember only the bad. For years, you go on and fantasize about the reviewer who didn't like your book; you imagine him as a jerk, a wife-beater, a real ogre. And, in the meantime, the reviewer has forgotten all about the whole thing. But, twenty years later, the writer still remembers that one bad review.
My belief in free speech is so profound that I am seldom tempted to deny it to the other fellow. Nor do I make any effort to differentiate between the other fellow right and that other fellow wrong, for I am convinced that free speech is worth nothing unless it includes a full franchise to be foolish and even...malicious.
I have a responsibility to my fellow my community, to my fellow man, and woman. With that said, I create from a place of selfishness, but I'm also cognizant of potential impact on others. And I try to make that impact positive.
What I say is that, if a fellow really likes potatoes, he must be a pretty decent sort of fellow.
If a writer I represent gets a bad or unfair review, I suffer. I'm upset and outraged and do everything I can to try and change that. But I would never do that on behalf of my own book because I wouldn't expect my writers to do that.
What I really like is an intelligent review. It doesn't have to be positive. A review that has some kind of insight, and sometimes people say something that's startling or is so poignant.
And yet I would not freely exchange my science for those of my fellow laureates. They are forever confined in their professional discussions to the small numbers of their fellow scientists.
It's not that kind of love. It's the real kind. The unconditional kind. The nonjudgemental kind. Not the physical kind. I love you as a fellow soul who inhabits this earth. I love you as a fellow immortal. I love you because I finally understand what made you the way you are. And if I could change it, I would. But I can't—so I choose to love you instead. And my hope is that my acceptance of you will spur you to do something good too, but if not—" I shrug. "At least I can say I tried.
One thing I noticed over time is that if I got a bad review, usually the bad part of it was at the very end. I could tell that nobody read the whole review because they would just say, "It was great to see the review!" In a way, my brain shuts down at the end of an article. It doesn't really want to go to the end.
Just as you would not permit a fellow employee to steal a piece of office equipment, you shouldn't let anyone walk away with the time of his fellow managers.
The people who review my books, generally, are kind of youngish culture writers who aspire to write books. When someone writes a book review, they obviously already self-identify as a writer. I mean, they are. They're writers, they're critics, and they're writing about a book about a writer who's a critic. So I think it's really hard for people to distance themselves from what they're criticizing.
Unless you're a terribly bad writer, you are never going to have too many readers.
Well it's been about 100 years and every attempt at a comics writers' union has failed miserably. There is, sadly, a long history of short-term thinking and self-destructive behavior among my fellow comic book creators. No matter how many horror stories they have heard they won't even go so far as to hire themselves a lawyer when they need it. It breaks my heart. I am a very proud union member of the Writers Guild. And I can't imagine my fellow comic creators being able to pull something like this together.
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