I would suggest counseling to get over your issues! You have let down a lot of people. A mature individual would have gotten through the issues and finished the book, then moved on. Well all this is well documented. Any future employer will be sure to see how unreliable you are. Your last comment proves what a loser you are!
Regrets Dan

What an unbelievably ignorant comment. Did you even read my message? And don’t compare me to Piers Anthony and his writing. This may come as a surprise to you, but being able to vomit out 200,000 words of genre fiction a year is not the end-all, be-all of literature. Same goes for Robert Jordan. And you are totally wrong; Piers Anthony has made LOTS of money off of his writing, and you can bet that if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t be doing it. He can afford to work for nothing now, because he’s made his money, and has his fans. I have a few dozen people on here (many hundreds on YouTube, or in the fiction I’ve placed in national journals), who aren’t respectful and who don’t offer any money.

In short, I stopped posting on here because of people like you, Kim. Thank you for making me regret my decision even less.

Tommy

I admire authors like him for working thru those issues (personal like his wife having open heart surgery, etc) and still providing a product to fans who have come to expect it from him. He sees little to no profit from his recent book, but still published it as to finish the series he promised to finish. A promised word means more than a beg for money.

So, in the end, I am VERY disappointed, and will NEVER support anything from this author again. I hope he takes this chance to not look at this as an attack, but realize if you want to be a big boy (popular author) you sometimes have to stick through a piece you don’t like anymore. Stop begging for money and complete a book. If you truly have written 4 complete books, publish one here. Then maybe some of “your word” will be credited to you. So far all people have seen is the LACK of a complete book, and that says a thousand words more.

Sorry for being an ass; I was frustrated. If there was anything incorrect in what I said, I apologize for that as well. It was a defense for Tommy in the guise of an attack; probably not the best way to goad Tommy into completing the book.

I understand your frustration. I wish I had your ability and talent. Unfortunately I have to depend solely on others talent. FYI If you published your book in print or on audio tape I would purchase it. Thank you again for responding. It meant a lot. ….. Sandy

Tommy has been having trouble posting to the blog. Seems the system keeps flagging his posts as spam. Unsure why that is, but you may be interested in his reply. I present it here, unedited:

—-

Hello Everyone,

I apologize for taking so long to write a response. As many of you may appreciate, life is complicated, and things happen that render podcasting fantasy novels trivial. I don’t mean to belittle what I or any of the other authors do here, but for reasons more personal than fiscal, other things have taken priority in my life.

First of all, to defend against a bit of defamation. I am 24 years old. I have written four complete novels. I have had two major agents, including ICM, which is the agency that represented F. Scott Fitzgerald, and many other great authors in the last six decades. I have written numerous short stories and articles, and had them published in major magazines (Tin House, McSweeney’s, ReadyMade and others). I am not an amateur. I am not lazy. I write for two hours every day, and have for the last six years.

I stopped writing this book because it was making me unhappy. I don’t typically write genre fiction. As a child, I loved science-fiction and fantasy, but these days, I find it escapist. In a world with so much television and film, so much fantasy, I think literature should aspire to more. Much work on this site does. I am not trying to denigrate what anyone is doing. I still have a soft spot for genre fiction. But it wasn’t inspiring me. I felt like I was writing for no reason that mattered. So I stopped, and started work on a book that truly interests me.

Again, I apologize sincerely for not talking to you about this decision. However, I would like to say this: I don’t care about money. That’s so unbelievably ridiculous, it insults all of us. No one who writes professionally cares about money. (The other work I do is as a professional musician; a song/video of mine was recently featured on the front page of YouTube (which is a site that pays nothing, in spite of the fact that my video received over 150,000 views), which was part of my distraction from TBC, along with applying to graduate schools, and personal issues). However, if you expect to read books being written for no money, you do have to create a new set of criteria. I realize it’s frustrating to get involved in a story and not get an ending. However, this is the price you pay for getting entertainment, entertainment that requires hours of thought, work and dedication, for no money. I do not feel obligated to you, because I have not received a single thing from you. I received far more frustrated emails after I stopped than friendly emails while I was writing. Just so you know, I have not received a single cent for the 35,000 words of fiction I presented on the site. I am not greedy. I am not lazy.

So there you are. Believe me when I say that I’m sorry to those of you who truly loved the book. I hope someday to return to it. But you will not make me feel guilty for my decision. And perhaps, next time you think to malign someone creating art for your benefit, you might consider that it is the responsibility of those who appreciate art to help support it, not just with money, but with respect.

Tommy Wallach
‘The Bright Child’

—–

@ John. Get a life and stop being one of those pious critics that feel the overwhelming need to explain to everyone on the web how smart you think you are. I bet even someone of your “grand” stature has the occasion to make a mistake or two.

I guess not everyone is as smart as you. So, I have a learning disability and have to rely on audio. It is “preposterous” you are so stuffy and can not see through my anger. I don’t care how how “gifted” this author is. It is about being responsible. He does not deserve his talent with behavior such as this! Looking at his so called web sites all I could see is that he starts something and never finishes. Go ahead critique this also.
Oh well. get a life!

I do have an email, but as much as I’d like him to come finish the book, it’s a breach of privacy for me to give it out.

I did a little googling and discovered he has a Myspace account. Maybe that’ll work?

Google ‘tommy wallach bright child’ and you’ll find it.

I definitely understand the frustration. It’s possible that some of the authors how have abandoned their book may be trying to force a purchase, but I know that’s certainly not the norm. Every author that starts knows that we expect the book to finish, and all of them know that we don’t fund any donations unless they do.

Internally, we’ve discussed implementing some system to put books “on hold” once a certain amount of time has passed between episodes. While it’s easy enough to program, there have been plenty of times where that would have been the wrong thing to do. So I’m hesitant.

Right now, we keep track of “slow” titles and then reach out to the author to see what the status is. If they say it’s coming, we hold off on taking action. If things have happened in their life to cause them to put it on a longer delay, we make the book inactive so that no new folks can subscribe. Right now, that’s the best we can do.

-”to” instead of “too”
-”loose” instead of “lose”
-various grammar problems
-various punctuation problems

I am sad that Tommy has discontinued the story. Sandy, please refrain from acting like you are in a superior position from which you may criticize those who actually have talent. Usually books are complete before publishing companies consider them. I doubt Tommy discontinued writing the work because of a lack of donations.