“I've never written a story that wasn't self-indulgent. Neither has any other fantasy or sf author. We indulge our interests, our obsessions, and assume that someone out there will feel as passionately about X as we do.”
(24 July 2005)
Unfit for Mass Consumption (blog entries), 2005
Context: There are many words and phrases that should be forever kept out of the hands of book reviewers. It's sad, but true. And one of these is "self-indulgent." And this is one of those things that strikes me very odd, like reviewers accusing an author of writing in a way that seems "artificial" or "self-conscious." It is, of course, a necessary prerequisite of fiction that one employ the artifice of language and that one exist in an intensely self-conscious state. Same with "self-indulgent." What could possibly be more self-indulgent than the act of writing fantastic fiction? The author is indulging her- or himself in the expression of the fantasy, and, likewise, the readers are indulging themselves in the luxury of someone else's fantasy. I've never written a story that wasn't self-indulgent. Neither has any other fantasy or sf author. We indulge our interests, our obsessions, and assume that someone out there will feel as passionately about X as we do.
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Caitlín R. Kiernan 45
writer 1964Related quotes
Source: The Rise of Endymion (1997), Chapter 3 (p. 49)
Source: Status Anxiety
“Do not indulge yourself in a self-pitying, self-gratifying revenge.”
ibid
The Rahotep series, Book 3: Egypt: The Book of Chaos (2011)
Context: Death makes us strangers to ourselves... Do not indulge yourself in a self-pitying, self-gratifying revenge. More than likely you would simply end up dead as well.
Source: Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art
(J. Hudson Taylor. A Ribband of Blue and Other Bible Studies. London: China Inland Mission, n.d., 113).