My Responsibilities as a Writer

This past weekend, on Facebook, I did a little venting. I usually ignore complaints on my books. Not every writer can please every reader—it’s a fact and that’s just the way it is. If I let the opinion of every person who doesn’t like my work bother me, I wouldn’t be able to write a word. I don’t read most reviews for that reason. If people love the books, I’m thrilled. If people don’t love the books, there’s nothing I can do to change matters, because I cannot and will not change my writing style based on what others want.

However, when someone tries to guilt me about the content of my work, 'just think if teens picked up your books'...I get pissed. And that happened this past week, and quite frankly, after being snowbound for six days, I didn’t have my usual patience when I received an email doing just that.

Yes, I write dark stories, and at times they will be uncomfortable. Sometimes what I write can verge on horror. It's what I do—it’s what I write.

I'd be cheating myself and my readers if I glossed over some of the uncomfortable elements I touch on. If I’d let Hyto capture Camille and she had emerged unscathed, I’d have been lying to the reader about his character. It would have rang false because yes, Hyto is a psychotic freak and to gloss over his nature would have been cheating as a writer.

Now, to the core of this post:

• It is not my responsibility to concern myself with who reads my books.
• It is not my responsibility to write books for all age groups.
• It is not my responsibility to decide whether your teenagers should read these books or not—I know I have a number of teenager readers. Whether they are allowed to read my books is between them and their parents.

  

• It is my responsibility to write books I enjoy writing, to write them true to my vision, and to not be influenced by others.
• It is my responsibility to write the best books I can at the time I am writing them.
• It is my responsibility to be true to the characters and storyline, and advance/evolve them even when it takes them into uncomfortable, dangerous, and frightening territory.
• It is my responsibility to meet my deadlines, to promote to the best I can without interfering with my writing or my personal life.

So, there’s nothing to say when people write to me complaining about the nature of what I write except, too fucking bad. There are many authors out there who write other genres, other worlds, other stories that aren’t like mine. I highly suggest reading widely to find out which authors you are comfortable with, and which authors you aren’t--there are books I love and books I don't, authors I love to read and authors I don't care for. But I don't write to them to complain because they are writing what they need to write. I just may not want to read it. And I refuse to censor my work to make some people comfortable.

Yasmine