Flaming wannabees

I've had encounters with wannabees who could not bear to be told the truth. Perhaps they came to me seeking validation. Perhaps they were in search of networking to further their attempts at a career as a writer. In the end, what they got was the truth. Then rather than deal with my criticism and suggestions, they went all over the net denouncing me and three in particular treaded a line that can only mean stalker.

One of them stalked all my blogs more than three years ago, trying to prove that my satire about Capt. Cussedness the pirate and the evil empress Honey Chylde were aimed at her. All of her confederates joined in and for a brief span made my life hell because I was new to the net and inexperienced enough at that point to take it all seriously. I was forced to give up my hosting at that site and move on. Partly I did it out of spite, and threatened to sue the company if they could not get her to leave me alone. Eventually she decided that I was a dangerous psycho and left me alone. When I posted to a newsgroup that she frequented a year ago, she attacked me saying that we had "history," and then a few days later she barged into my chatroom (she knew it was my chatroom) and tried to pretend that nothing had happened. I promptly told her that it was inappropriate for her to be there and reminded her that we had "history" as she put it. Then I banned her.

The second one came from a writer who is apparently self-published and writes at about the level of an intelligent eight-year-old and has a fantasy series out. He spammed my message board pretending to be his own fan and since I have a healthily paranoid group of mods and members, we unearthed the fact that the "fan" was actually the author and that he had spammed over 300 messageboards. When I could not get him to stop I eventually became angry enough to post my honest opinion to his book's listing at Amazon.com. Now, his book is terrible. He stopped in the middle of a fight scene to spend three paragraphs explaining orcs. The book had typos, grammar problems, chewing-gum sentences, and tense changes in mid-sentence. If he had paid attention to what I had carefully said about his book, he could have avoided making some of the same mistakes the next time he wrote something. The book needed an experienced editor.

His response was to write a review of one of my books without reading the book and parrot back what I had said about his. Anyone using the look inside feature at Amazon.com would have seen that he was a liar. So he didn't even read that much and didn't quote examples of what he considered to be my bad grammar or demonstrate my typos and so forth. Just claimed they were there. Considering that the book, Blood Rites, was professionally copy-edited and edited by my publisher, Renaissance Ebooks, the problems did not exist. My editors would have caught them and either fixed them or had me revise. I have books out there that were revised to editorial direction many times before my editors were satisfied with them.

But amazon.com is a flamewar playground where this type of thing goes on in the form of people blasting away in thinly disguised flames in the reader reviews section.

The third one has lasted the longest. He's famous for flames, stalking, and other dastardly behaviors and once wrote a story using my name as the main character and posting around the net that it was about me. In it he accused me of plagerizing him. Which is interesting in that he's a horror writer and the only thing that was available from me at the time was a sword and sorcery piece that I had up on my website, which had been originally published while he was still in diapers. He has continued to stalk and attack me and my daughter for three years.

My crime was to tell him that he needed to work on his grammar and use Strunk and White. He once posted a flaming crit of my book without reading it and his final line was "burn in hell you dyke." Fortunately amazon.com took it down in response to complaints from people.

It is behavior like this that makes me want to never tell a wannabee what's wrong with his work. It also causes me to pull back when someone asks me to read their fiction. There is a new person at my chatroom who wants me to read their material. I'm considering it. However, I'll wait to see how they respond to crits from the other members of the chatroom. If they react professionally, then I'll read something by them.

Children of Wrath is at Fictionwise. YAY

Between Renebooks moving their hosting, and other issues, Children of Wrath has been sitting on their site and their alternate site, but had not yet made it up at fictionwise. Well, that's finally been changed and that gives me a delightful feeling.


CHILDREN OF WRATH

"Triumphant Conclusion of the Dark Fantasy Saga Reviewer Susie Hawes Calls"Fast Paced, Vivid and Dramatic! Janrae has done it again. [The Journey of the Sacred King Quartet] pulls you right in. These novels are set in the same world as the Dark Brothers of the Light saga. Featuring characters and a society first discussed in the novel, In the Darkness, Hunting; this book tells the story of Aejystrys Rowan and her rivalry with her sister, Margren. Aejystrys is a a paladin who has lost her faith. When her homeland and the life of her daughter are threatened she returns from exile, even though to do so is to risk execution. Margren's hatred of Aejystrys is a motivating factor in her decision to overthrow the realm and kill Aejystrys' daughter. "this book will keep you rooted to the end." In the final novel of this million word saga, Hoon and Mephistis seek revenge on Aejystrys. Kalirion calls in her debt for being allowed to draw his sword, Spiritdancer. She founds Rowanhart with herself as king. Hoon and Mephistis attack but are defeated and forced to flee. Aejys marries Josiah and Tamlestari, only to divorce Josiah, who has another woman. On the orders of her liege-god Kalirion, Aejys pursues Hoon and Mephistis who are hiding in Charas, the City of Magic. Dynarien and Josiah, who is dying of the spell he cast in book two, accompany Aejys in disguise. It all leads to a final, unforgettable confrontation of swords against sorcery, that leads to one of the most unexpected conclusions in the history of heroic fantasy!

eBook Publisher: Renaissance E Books/PageTurner, Published: 2006
Fictionwise Release Date: April 2006

I think the publisher's blurb gives a bit too much away, but not as badly as some I've seen over the years. I'm glad to finally see it out. It's an interesting feeling to have one of my series finished.

The newest installment in the Dark Brothers of the light series, Blood Harvest, is nearly finished, and I have a third series just starting. Mother Damnation: The Blessed and the Damned has been turned into my editor, Karen E. Taylor.

My work with Karen may be something of an industry first: An author of vampire fiction editing an author of vampire fiction

Kamikaze

I'm getting ready to cross post a group of kamikaze posts from my lj here. I'm still angry, but more than anything I think I've finally come to the straw / camel point in my association with the section of the horror community that posts on messageboards and blogs. I am resigning from Persephone Writers Organization where I have been the membership chair, and I'm posting less and less on various horror boards, so it's no big loss that I stop completely. My interest in the immature gamesmanship, insulting behavior patterns, and their "willingness to compromise with evil" in their fiction and their feeding frenzies has become both tiresome and irksome. I'm going to single out some people by name here and list them as having contributed to my decision.

Nicholas Pacione
Nick Mamatas
Nick Kaufmann
Mike Philbin
Steven Wedel
Rain Graves

There are others, but it will do for a start.

I have always been an outsider by nature. I put up with people in groups for a long time before I finally lose all patience with them. One of the things that most made me want to become a writer was the freedom to walk my own path, experience my own journey, and to not find myself confined by the expectations of others.

Good writing comes not from not from an exploration of the outer world in a shallow manner, but from an inner wellspring that has reflected upon how the outer impinges upon the inner. Good writing is not based upon mean-spirited people writing mean-spirited stories. Good writing is not afraid to look inside the heart and soul and contemplate our own and others simple tragedies. Good writing is not the scary face in the window. It is the scary face of our own hearts and souls.

I have no patience and tolerance left.

Suggestions anyone?

My webmaster has asked that I include small memorable quotations from my novels for him to place on the webpage. However, I have absolutely no idea what those might be.

Therefore I'm asking the people who have read my work to make suggestions. I will put the quotations up on my website along with "suggested by" and a link to your website or blog (your choice).

Changes and More

While I originally started this for political commentary alone, I realize that I spend most of my time writing fiction, so I need to include some of that also.

I firmly believe that Bush stole both elections, that the guy they are trying to get onto the supreme court is corrupt, and worry about the fact that they are trying to cancel the civil rights act which would allow them to disenfranchise millions of blacks in the south.

So now, lets turn to the writing aspects.

I currently have one book is tradepaper from Wildside Press: In The Darkness, Hunting

Four volumes in the Dark Brothers of the Light series are available in electronic form from Renaissance Ebooks. Titles are:
Blood Rites
Blood Heresy
Blood Dawn
Blood Wraiths

Blood Paladin will be out in a few weeks. It is the darkest book in the series.

Unity

Today this blog becomes political and social commentary, the things I don't normally put on my other journals.

What I want to say to all of you is something about unity.

Back during the Nixon administration, Tricky Dick drove a wedge through all the small liberal groups that had previously been allies by breaking us up for a share of the grants and other matters by category and making us scrabble for small handouts. He divided us, made us compete with each other, and created an atmosphere of distrust where there should never have been one.


Traditional allies such as the Civil Rights movement and the Feminist movement suddenly separated themselves. There wasn't a glbt movement yet, but there would be eventually.

As Benjamin Franklin said "We either hang together or we shall all hang separately."

There needs to be a gathering of forces for freedom of thought, freedom of lifestyle, freedom of religion, freedom of owning our own reproductive rights, freedom of speech and protest.

We are desperately in need to pulling together again, to stand united to protect our rights which are being swiftly eroded under the current administration. We must put aside our differences and stand together for what we value in our lives before it is taken away from us and we slide back into the dark days of McCarthyism and bigotry.

Insurance companies are no longer covering birth control, even while they are willing to pay for viagra. Marriage is an institution founded on love, and which kinds of love are appropriate should not be dictated by right wing religious institutions. Marriage has always existed and in so many forms it could not possibly be counted. The one man, one woman definition is comparatively recent.

I could go on, but I will save that for another day.

To Be Continued.

blowing off steam

I figured I would rant here because I think my other journals are getting over loaded by them. I only got a blog here so that I could post as someone other than anonymous.

Or more to the point so that I could post as myself at Wierdish Wildspace, Mary San Giovanni's site. I have another blog spot that I haven't set up yet that I got simply to have posting access to some friends' journals and may activate that one also in the near future. There's so much going on that that I don't want to innundate any single journal with them. For the last two months, my journal at journalscape has rarely gone without a post and sometimes multiple posts in a single day.

Okay, here's the rant.

My son had a very serious situation with kidney stones. The damned things were huge and the first doctor said that he should be rushed right to surgery. However, my son was determined to avoid that if possible and insisted on trying ultrasound to blast the stones first. His girlfriend was at his side and was as adamant as he was. His friend, Adam, who was also there, said that the first doctor was "scalpel-happy". For several days my son was in so much pain he couldn't speak.

The ultrasound, what is called lithoscopy, worked and the stones were shattered. That meant that my son would not need surgery, which he would have had the procedure failed, and there was always that possibility. The first twenty-four hours there was still blood in his urine, but it went away. However, he needs to watch for signs of infection.

All of this happened on my birthday. I spent days worrying about my son, then the day after my birthday he had the procedure. I had a single day to start to finally relax, when Pacione decided to start bombarding me with death wishes for my son.

I lost my temper to the worst degree yet. If I had lived in the same town as this pig, I would have driven over and smashed his face in. That's how stressed and angry I was. Pigman had finally managed to find me feeling vulnerable enough to strike at successfully.

However, it is going to be a very short-lived victory.

Godwar postern station

Okay, this started because I didn't want to use the anonymous feature to comment on Mary San Giovanni's journal. Now give me some time to think about something to say.