[kater]

Language was and is a way to interact with others of our race but does it truly allow us to explain our innermost thoughts and recognitions or is it a faulty medium that leads to as much misunderstanding and confusion as not having it would?

Yes I have had The Twins for two months, from amazon.co.uk, and it is mid-way down the pile - many of my favourite authors have published books recently so they go straight to the top. I have to confess I was uncertain about your books, they aren't really the type of book on first impressions I go straight for (though having not read it I may be dead wrong) but after all the positive reviews I've read - especially by a Mr J Thorne on amazon, I'm willing to give the first one a go. One thing I would say is that the one paragraph summary on amazon wouldn't have attracted me if I hadn't known what I do about the book from this site.

[Gary Wassner]

What was it about the summary? It's good to know these things. I don't have any idea what you normally read though.

Personally, I prefer the Awakening to the Twins, and I prefer The Revenge of the Elves, which hasn't come out yet, to them all. But everyone is different. Once a book is finished and in print, it's out of the author's hands. It's there for everyone regardless and even if you have moved on or developed as an author, the reader really has to begin a series with the first book. Still, most good authors I know, those whom I respect and whose books I enjoy, are nervous about their first books and look back at them almost as you would other things you did when you were younger and in a different place than you are now.

I hope you enjoy The Twins anyway. It's all about expectations. If you read what people have said about it here, then you will have at least some sense of what to expect and unless they are all wrong, you won't be disappointed in that regard.

[kater]

Of those authors still publishing regularly I normally read Feist, Gemmell, Barclay, King, Card, Stover, occasionally Salvatore, Hobb, Hamilton and a few others. So I guess I can be pigeonholed as a heroic fantasy type if you wanted. Anyway here's the summary from amazon:

The mighty Lalas are dying. The great, sentient trees are departing the world that they have protected since the beginning of time, leaving the people bereft and confused.
The fabric weaves of its own will, weaving around the Twins, binding them inextricably into the cloth, as they are violently thrust into a threatening world. Separated at birth, Davmiran and Tomas, heirs to the throne of Gwendolen, struggle to find the truth that will save their world.
Assisted by a group of extraordinary warriors, scholars, magi and friends, Tomas chooses his battles and demonstrates his strength and fortitude. But Davmiran lies unconscious in the Heights of Lormarion, as the world awaits his revival so that he, too, can fulfill his unique and compelling destiny.

This is obviously personal taste but I like some intrigue and a hook. Tbh I felt like with the above there was too much information, too many names and it bounced around without being clear and intriguing. Something simple like using the lines:

The mighty Lalas are dying. The great, sentient trees are departing the world that they have protected since the beginning of time, leaving the people bereft and confused.
Separated at birth, Davmiran and Tomas, heirs to the throne of Gwendolen, struggle to find the truth that will save their world.

would have been more than enough to catch me without having to go into explaining the plan for the whole book. I just felt it was too much.

[Gary Wassner]

Interesting comment. Actually, I didn't write that, my editor at my publisher did. They upload all of that information.

Since I wrote the book and i know it intimately, I can tell you that writing a summary is probably the hardest thing to do. I would have said something different, but they are the ones who are supposed to know about marketing, not me. There is much more going on in this book than what's listed there. If you read KatG's comments on my forum thread, 'I Finished the book...." you'll see. Or the review here: http://www.wotmania.com/fantasymessageboardshowmessage.asp?MessageID=11589 8

[kater]

Cool, I wasn't suggesting that was the whole book but it seemed like they wanted to cram a lot into one paragraph and overegged the mixture. On the recommendation of Mr Thorne and others I've been using the snowflake method to write, which uses a lot of summaries; one line, one paragraph, three paragraphs, one page. So I partially appreciate the difficulty, I couldn't though imagine trying to sell my writing to someone other than people I know.

[Gary Wassner]

It's an anomaly, isn't it? Writing is so personal and then when you finish something, you are forced to almost prostitute it. You become your own pimp. It isn't an easy transition. At least whores remain anonymous afterward. The hardest part about pimping your own books is reading the critiques of your prowess later.

[kater]

Yeah so personal and influenced, yet to be deemed 'successful' you have to sell it to the largest, most disparate number of people as possible and end up justifying your work to people hell bent on shooting it and you down. I know that many authors understand that each person's perception and understanding of their work will be different, and that the reader and the writer create a new story for every new person that reads the book, but I'd be damn tempted to shoot them all down and tell them that my way, the way I wrote the book, was the way to read it. Critiques of the snobbish, intellectual variety would drive me nuts, I'm confrontational about things I believe in and listening to a bunch of hacks pick apart my writing based solely on its genre would lead to a lot of unmoving bodies. Have you found it gets easier or do you just ignore it all?

[alison]

Being a poet and used to print runs of, oh, 500 if I'm lucky, I find myself singularly unworried by various ideas of "success". Success and failure, as M. Giacometti said, are secondary. And I figure that not only are people free to think what they like, but that they _must_ be free to think what they like, or even not to read my deathless work :) - I've had some bad reviews in my life (an opera that got totally panned here, especially, I was called a terrible writer as pompous as Sartre, or something like that - mind you, the season was also sold out). But hey, a bad review is worth an afternoon's sulking and that's it. Either you believe in and love what you're doing, or you don't. I am always hanging out for intelligent reviews, but they're very hard to come by. And the only thing that really bothers me in a review is if somebody gets something wrong.

Frankly, I really think that people only notice the name in a review, and forget entirely what it says! Like a friend of mine says, no publicity is bad publicity. Otherwise, in terms of my work, I just take the advice of those I respect, and ignore the rest.

[Gary Wassner]

It's so personal still for me that it really hasn't gotten any easier with time, Kater. Though I am advised by many much more successful and more experienced authors than me to stop reading reviews and to stop participating in discussions and forums, I enjoy the interaction. People can be very callous and very hurtful when they post their comments in places like this. I assume that they think that authors are fair game because their books are out there for public consumption, somewhat akin to how they feel about a celebrity and their privacy. Still, few would treat a stranger on the street as thoughtlessly as they would an author who has bared his or her soul to them and has struggled against the odds to get their book into print.

All publicity is good publicity in one sense. For practical purposes and marketing etc, it's true. But I don't write to sell. I don't even publish to sell. I publish to be read. So a very critical, cavalier review would strike me deeply. None of us could possibly love all that we have written. All of us have doubts. We know the shortcomings of our talent, and we all have them. I absolutely love it when someone emails me or posts a review that is very positive. I love it when something I have written strikes a chord in someone else and they see me clearly; they see what I intended to say. I got an email once from a person who told me that they wanted a poem of mine, Tomorrow's Wind, read at their funeral. I was very moved by that, although I admit that at first I wasn't quite sure if that was a compliment or not. And I am hurt when someone misses all that I try to accomplish in my writing and criticizes me for things that seem so irrelevant and so superficial. Their opinions may be valid for them, but it hurts nonetheless. If they don't like my books, fine. They are certainly not for everyone. If they were, then I am sure I wouldn't like them very much myself.

[alison]

But Gary, isn't all that part and parcel of putting work out in public? It's the work people are responding to (for good or ill), not the author him or herself. I might put all my heart and soul into my work, but it isn't "me". I always hope people will like my work (we all do, or why would we write?) but the risk of publication is negative response. It's not so bad; and in the end, it's simply not worth taking personally.