For me, the best tribute to Mr. Lake came a few years ago, when John Scalzi used him as Exhibit A in a tough-love kind of article about how to find writing time:
This is why at this point in time I have really very little patience for people who say they want to write but then come up with all sorts of excuses as to why they don’t have the time. You know what, today is the day my friend Jay Lake goes into surgery to remove a huge chunk of his liver. After which he goes into chemo. For the third time in two years. Between chemo and everything else, he still does work for his day job. And when I last saw him, he was telling me about the novel he was just finishing up. Let me repeat that for you: Jay Lake has been fighting cancer and has had poison running through his system for two years, still does work for his day job and has written novels. So will you please just shut the fuck up about how hard it is for you to find the time and inspiration to write, and just do it or not.
You know that famous dichotomy expressed in The Shawshank Redemption, "Get busy livin', or get busy dyin'"? Well, sometimes in this life you're forced to get busy doing both.
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