Some of the fan mail that comes in is a shade less polite than the rest: here's today's example

[dianeduane]

So I start going through the email and find one waiting for me that has no topic, no salutation, and the very first sentence is as follows:

First off i would like Diane Duane to respond not some hired help.

Then a critique of some timeline issues in the YW books ensues, in a rather brusque and cranky tone. The mail then ends like this:

Respond or I will send an email a week for as long as it takes to get your attention.

And that's it: signature, but no "thanks for your time" or anything of the kind. (eyeroll) Sorry, [name omitted]. The Lady Mevrian and I are of one mind in this regard: "patience only and courtesy shall get good of me", especially when somebody's work day looks like mine.* So [name omitted] gets one of the form letters which my long-suffering part-time assistant composed.

I resisted that kind of thing for as long as I could. But it got to a point -- what with the artless and delightful emails and letters from ten-year-olds looking for help with their school projects, the twelve-year-olds who want me to write their essays on Deep Wizardry for them (or, in some cases, instruct me to tell them where they can find the Cliff Notes online, and hurry up about it, because they need it for today, for something at school), the older fanficcers who want me to read their YW fic and [approve it / critique it / include it in the next YW novel], and many other similar kinds of query -- that I was spending whole mornings dealing with the e-correspondence alone, and we had to pull together some kind of FAQ or canned response for messages like this. (Paper letters always get answered. But the sheer volume of the emails is just too great these days -- routinely ten or twenty such messages each day, on the average.)

As regards this particular guy's query: yes indeed, there are timeline issues in the YW series, especially as regards the ages of the characters. For some of them, I accept responsibility: occasionally a writer can get confused, especially while transiting a series from one publisher to another. Other hiccups (especially in earlier volumes) are errors in copyediting where things got "fixed" for me and I didn't catch them in time to fix them back. (One notable example of this kind of thing: the book where Kit's last name is spelled all the way through with a terminal "s" instead of a "z".)

There's at least one online attempt to reconcile / make sense of the timeline (and document the parts that already make sense) -- the YW timeline and miscellany page run by one of our YW discussion forum moderators, the enthusiastic and thoughtful Peter Murray. But the "reconciliation" parts are a stopgap.

Pretty soon now I'm going to be talking to the present publisher about the next three books, and further plans for the series at large; and one thing very much on my mind is tweaking all the age references in the first eight books so that they make sense, and dealing with some other time-related issues to iron out various other difficulties. Obviously this is going to mean resetting the type on some, if not all, of the early volumes: which runs into money. We'll see what the publisher has to say.

Meanwhile, time to get another cup of tea and dig out that form letter...

*And if someone would tell me what a scan of The Worm Ourobouros is doing in the Sacred Texts website, I'd be grateful. Not that I mind, particularly. (Apropos of nothing: the Sacred Texts pages link to a fairly recent map of the world of The Worm, which is useful if [like me] you sometimes have trouble getting to grips with the geography there.)

Comments

[ursulav.livejournal.com]

*grin* You ever get the people who inform you that (insert mythical creature here) AREN'T LIKE THAT, DAMNIT, YOU PHILISTINE!!!?

It may be more of an art thing, but in the days when I painted dragons more frequently than I do, I was averaging at least one a month. And they'd get so indignant!

Those were always my favorites...

[dduane.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah. With variations: I get: "wands aren't like that!" (well, maybe they are in somebody else's universe -- usually JKR's -- but not in mine); "magic doesn't work like that" (ditto); etc etc etc. And yes, they're usually indignant! How dare I be so ignorant about stuff that everybody knows!! How dare I mislead the world on [fill in the detail] for nearly twenty years when just five years ago JKR told us.. (yet more etc etc etc.) :)

It gives me the giggles, I tell you.

[caitlin.livejournal.com]

I never understand why people are so indignant about things "not being like THAT" since the creation they are usually objecting to were created by the person they're being indignant AT.

I mean, it's called 'imagination' and 'creativity' right? *wry*

As for the Transcendent Pig... *ahem* "What's the Meaning of Life?" =) I mean I know the ANSWER to Life, the Universe, and Everything is 42, but what does it MEAN? ;)

C.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Can I point out that you have both got the Transcendent Pig wrong?

Ka-ching!

[dduane.livejournal.com]

(eyebrows up) "Wrong?" In what way, exactly?

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

"But it's obvious!"

I tease. The TP is your creature. And I've going to assume that Ursula would have been informed if she'd got it wrong. But surely you sometimes get the "You got it wrong" with no explication?

[dduane.livejournal.com]

Heh. :)

[genmaicha.livejournal.com]

Wow. And here it takes me a rather considerable amount of courage to even drop this comment. 'Course, I'm one of those anxious people who worries too much about bothering others and is almost too polite in the process. Still, what possesses some people to be so point-blank rude when they're asking for something?

[dduane.livejournal.com]

I would be tempted to say that this is just another of the examples of how the Intarwebz Are Making Us All Ruder. We don't yet have a word for "an inaccurate sense of over-entitlement", but that would seem to be what a lot of these folks are exhibiting.

Sometimes it just boils down to thoughtlessness on the mailer's part, or unconsciousness about how they "sound" in print. But sometimes it's just "I want this *now*, and you're here to give it to me! Get on with it!" Which can be annoying.

Then again, maybe it's because -- since one of my books can be bought in stores -- I'm seen as a part of the service economy. As "customer support." :)

Well, service can be a very high level of operation, when it's conducted properly. But "support"? I don't think I signed up for that. (resigned look) Question is, will this kind of person ever believe that?...

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Have you ever thought of selling a Maintenance Plan? it's a wonder for those of us who do have to worry about customer support. "You're not on maintenance? Oh, I'm sorry, I'll see what I can do, but I can't guarantee anything."

(Actually, the Concordance would count as better customer support than some vendors provide.)

[dduane.livejournal.com]

(snicker) But that's one of its purposes. The Concordance is just a very large FAQ. With pictures.

[gearworld.livejournal.com]

And I want fries with that book! And a small coke!

[kengr]

Oh, that attitude predates the modern Internet. It was prevalent on BBSes in the early 1980s.

If I had a nickel for every time I've had to explain some yahoo (in the Swiftean sense!) that "freedom of speech" is *not* the right to spout of on anything they choose on someone else's forum...

At least my fanmail is still sparse and the worst I get is "when will another chapter be done?". Then again, I'm just posting stories on my website with links on a couple of sites for the same "shared universe".

[posicat.livejournal.com]

It's not just an effect of the internet, it happens in cars, over the radio, any point where technology puts up a wall between us and the physical person. It's all to easy to disregard someone's feelings when you arn't there to see their reaction in person. There's an empathic connection between people (and cats) that comes from someone's expressions, body language, gestures, voice tone, that just doesn't quite translate into other forms of communication.

I've heard the term "internet balls" used to describe the ability for people to be rude in these situations.

[dduane.livejournal.com]

(grin) Run with it.

But the time issues do have to be handled. This upcoming period, when we start setting up for the next three books and making other plans (a possible print version of the Errantry Concordance, (http://www.youngwizards.com/Errantry_Concordance) other such things..) is the perfect time to get it all handled.

[inklesspen.livejournal.com]

Ooh, finally I can buy a copy of the Manual. (After all, what ELSE would you expect us to call it?)

[dduane.livejournal.com]

BTW, let me know when I can link to the Carmela image. (See my note over there.)

BTW, I think you ran into the old 72% / 25% moire' pattern problem with the tones. Reduce by 50%'s and it doesn't seem to come up.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

First off i would like Diane Duane to respond not some hired help.

1) Oh, if only we *had* hired help!

2) I like the JournalFen stock reply for this: "Okay!"

[dduane.livejournal.com]

(chuckle) Yeah, I like that too.

[singer-mn-lead.livejournal.com]

yeah, i myself have been meaning to ask you. how did you come up with Tom and Carl? those two are my favorites.

[dduane.livejournal.com]

They're real people. One of them is my former story editor on "Scooby-Doo."

[singer-mn-lead.livejournal.com]

( almost falls out of chair.) can't squeal right now. i'n in a public library. walk outside then I can scream " they're real people?"

repeat

They are real people? cool.

$0.02

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

That is a good philosophy: patience and courtesy. Always important.

I'm one of those ubiquitous college kids who are Gonna Publish Their Book Someday. While the thought of having fanfiction written for something I made would be flattering, I don't know if I would be able to stand reading it. I'm not much for fanfic, though I will borrow a general idea for stories if I don't plan to show them to anyone. (I always felt guilty for borrowing hauissh, though, since I didn't bother to rearrange it at all. It was just such a GOOD idea. But don't worry ~ that's not in the one I'm Gonna Publish. I don't like to rip people off.)

Do you ever get good fanfics? I was always of the opinion that fan fiction fills a psychological gap, but I never did understand the idea of putting it on the internet.

Oh, as long as I'm going to be irritating you on here (since I friended you and will be cheerfully reading your blog, and I can never resist adding my own thoughts), I should let you know that my name's Amelia. And I write my own essays, no worries there. I just like to natter away online, and I've always liked your books. So anyway, hi!

Re: $0.02

[dduane.livejournal.com]

Hi!

Re fanfics: I don't read them -- there are numerous legal issues that make it smarter not to. (Also, I have enough trouble critiquing my own work: I don't do other people's except in a workshop setting.) The only YW fanfic I have anything to do with is the "Wizards on Call" group fanfic over at Youngwizards.com (which I really have to submit the next bit to: it's been quite a while, but work keeps interfering.)