Great Job! Now Do It Again.

I found a pretty cool story today. It's called Captain Estar Goes to Heaven. After I finished reading it, I decided to look at the comments that other people had left. All of them contained praise in one form or another, but there was another thing I couldn't help but notice: everybody couldn't wait for the next story to come out.

Nobody explicitly said anything like "I will treasure this story forever." And though I'm sure there are people who do treasure the story, far more people were excited at the idea of what would happen next. And that bothered me.

I know that the intent is to be positive. Those comments are meant to be encouraging; they tell the author that whatever they choose to write, they will already have the support of the fans. However, whenever I read them, they sound like an insatiable beast clamoring for "More!"

And, realistically, people do seem to be insatiable beasts. We are massive consumers. We always have books we want to read, movies we want to see (both queued up for streamlining), and disposable one-shot entertainment like the news, which is regularly updated, but forgotten as easily as it's read.

Of course, if you start viewing your own life as a means of creating disposable, forgotten entertainment, nothing good will come of it. Look at those "looking forward to the next one" comments as a positive. See them as a sign that the people already love your work and wish for you to create more so they can dedicate a shelf of their personal library to you. Even if it's a lie, it will certainly give you the energy and desire to continue being a writer (and if you're a writer, it's a pretty good desire to have).