Authors Being Dickholes

There is no shortage of authors behaving badly thanks to a culmination of social media, self publishing, and Max Rager in the water (is it Tuesday yet? No? DAMN IT!).

This one comes courtesy of the most pretentious of names, Dylan Saccoccio.

Seems someone dared to leave a one star review on his book The Boy and the Peddler of Death, and our Serious Literary Genius took it upon himself to tell the reviewer just how terribly wrong she was. She was taking food right out of his mouth, crushing his gossamer dreams, and then he compared the reviewer to a kidnapper or something. It gets really confusing as he goes on and on into the depths of rage (a great reflection of the book I'm certain.)

As this all blew up across Goodreads, Amazon, and Twitter, our Mr. Saccoccio of course deleted his comments and blog posts. But, as the ancient Sumerian saying goes - the internet is forever.

You can read the entire exchange lovingly preserved here.

I've been wanting to talk about the whole author/reader relationship for awhile. With social media, authors are encouraged to dole out info, quotes, and general excitainment for readers. And readers are invited to befriend and share with authors. But the review line is where that friendship runs into a brick wall.

Long before I did the writing thing, I'd review stuff; things I loved and things I hated. I spent a lot of time worrying about my take on Other Space because I had so many MSTies that were friends/how easily the review could wind up under Trace or Joel's noses. Even my poking fun of the idiotic Food Network show Halloween Wars invited a small bunch of people questioning me for daring to voice my unappreciative of shitty cakes.


As our vampire hunting president put it, "You can't please all of the people all of the time. Now duck while I stab this bloodsucker in the heart."

People have every right to say what they do and do not like. Trying to force everyone to only discuss things they love sounds like the plot of a dystopian novel.

Authors, you might be really really tempted to rush in there and defend your words or refute something a reader got wrong but don't. Even if the reviewer called your main character "one dimensional," your plot "invisible," and the writing "broke after I plugged it in" do not rise to the occasion.

Nothing freaks a reviewer out more than seeing a response from the author/creator. You just know they're coming to raise some hackles and rattle chains. And if they're not, if they have a very civil response, it still feels creepy.

It breaks down that invisible wall that readers want their review to be for other readers. When an author responds, your brain goes to the old canard "If you can't say anything nice..." and you want to rush to hide over your words. Actually, civilly responding to someone's 1 star review is a great way to get them to change it. They're reminded that it was a person who they just dumped all over and will feel bad. Their opinion of the material may not have changed but they're worried about looking like a jerk.

It may work, but is it honest?

And that's why I never respond to reviews I read (because we read them, we all read them). Good, bad, indifferent, I don't want readers to think I'm watching over their shoulder about to pounce if they don't click the right number of boxes.

For the sake of the reviewer I keep it all to myself and my dog.

Halloween Wars - The Finale

You've made it! Okay, so we're half crab creatures, we lost Dennis to the fudge pits, and Tabitha had to go and touch the forbidden gem of foreboding forbiddeness didn't she? But we're still here. And we all know that it's two people who survive through to the end of every horror movie, right?

Sod this! *shoves you into a vat of sugar acid and runs*

YOU'LL NEVER CATCH ME! MWHAHAHAHA!

So here we are, the finale, the grand tuna, the one for all the markers.

Halloween Wars - Week 3

*chews through ropes, dribbles acidic blood across chains, stops for a sandwich*

Finally! After all these years of recaps, of struggling against the torture, I can see it. The flickering light of freedom.

Damn it!

Much like the protagonist in a horror movie whose contract is extended, you honestly thought you'd get out of here alive? Ha ha ha ha!

And to accompany us on your boat ride to Hades, complete with souvenir photo of Charon, is this lovely old lady.

Apparently she wrote the Sookie Sackhouse/True Blood books which all the contestants gave a shoulder shrug about.  Since she'd finished them off months ago, I assume Food Network offered her a free slice of buttermilk pie and then refused to let her leave.

From now on, every time Alexander Skarsgard gets naked you'll picture this face behind it all. Mwhahahaha!

Halloween Wars - Week 2

Welcome back to the part of the horror movie where the camera crew throws cats at us until one mutates into a rampaging hell beast and gouges out someone's eyes. (probably the funny sidekick)

That's right, you're back into:

Our guest judge this week was the candyman, who didn't actually bring any candy or sing about what he can do. Total let down.

You've shed your innocent blood all over the couch.

Since Food Network locked itself into these small challenges, they've got no choice but to keep flogging that decaying horse until candy or maggots fall out. This week's little challenge proves just how far down the "I don't give a fuck" hole they've fallen.

Something out of Greek Mythology, in 45 minutes. Go!

*cue 20 minute raspberry*

Halloween Wars - Week 1

We shot, dismembered, set aflame, tossed into a sausage grinder, fed to genetically engineered bear sharks, and rocketed it at the sun; yet like every horror franchise drilled into the ground and dug up for another go the monster of our worst nightmares is back and coming at us through the television set!

Don't go thinking they got a new opening title sequence. I just prefer this wipe screen.

Next Week on Iron Halloween Chopped!

As part of our June Halloween Club meeting this year a handful of us rose to a challenge that should sound familiar to anyone else who's ever camped out in front of the Food Network and wondered where their brain stem went.

Each team was given a bag (basket) full of unknown materials and given 90 minutes to create a Halloween prop. There was a community table of stuff; mostly tools, paint and some building materials.

Every team could bring two props from home. We chose a skull and were originally going to bring a rotating motor but replaced that at the last moment with a hot wire, which I never used. Score!

We had to use three of the six objects hidden inside the bag:

• Clear tubing
• Toothpicks
• Cotton balls
• Plastic Golf balls
• Rope
• Foam (a haunter's staple)

We all set about scurrying with our ideas, throwing stuff against the wall and seeing what stuck, then trying to unstick it to glue it to our undead wasp mummy prop. I was in the middle of painting when the twist came, there must always be a twist or else something something.

On top of the three out of six (or 7 of 9 if you brought a Borg to help), we also had to incorporate a set of plastic curlers and an adorable fabric flower with a big smiley face.

I was too busy in the midst of creating to take lots of pictures so everything is "after."

Oddly, there was very little drama™. No one chopped a finger off, no one got into a major fight over the hot glue gun, no one accidentally reanimated a corpse and had it ransack the studio audience (the only watchable episode of Cupcake Wars.) We all laughed, glued, painted, sawed, and sliced through while encouraging everyone and finished before time was called.

But the props.

I may as well begin with our own. I decided to spray paint the skull a red and go full on demon:

For the golf balls, my husband cut them in half (because I'd have sliced my hand right off) and I painted them red, white and black and turned them into some serious skull bug eyes. The toothpicks were wrapped in duct tape, then stuck inside a cotton ball jammed in the rest of the golf balls and all that coated in duct tape.

This created the hands and duct tape newspaper gave the arms.

The horns were shaped from the foam.

The flower I spray painted a dead black and even gave it a joker frowney blood red face (which you can't see because I'm smart like that), we also cut off the end to reinforce the neck so no floppy headed baby demon.

As for the curlers, well I snapped them in half and boom instant demon eyelashes. Maybe she's spawned with it, maybe it's Maybelline.

A few of our other fellow haunters went in different directions entirely:

Spider and eyeball soup.

 Stabbed skull brain dessert.

 A little subdued Dia de los muertos:

 I, uh, still have no idea. Maybe it's upside down.

But this last one, I took one look at and went op that wins. No amount of skill can top light up eyes, sound effects or motions. It's Challenge rules 101.

Of course you don't get much cooler than that without bringing in something that shoots fire (note, next year bring someone that shoots fire), so we lost to the Bride of Funkenstein.

But much fun was had by all and I suspect we can use our little baby female demon somewhere in our home haunt (in the back somewhere), which is all we were hoping for.

Halloween Wars - Week Four

We made it. Past the corpulent clowns, the ravenous vampire bears and the Jeff Goldbulms hanging in subwy bathrooms. We're finally here, at the battle to end all battles once and for good.

Let the War begin!

Halloween Wars - Week 3

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the ocean beside the dreamy summertime camp..in space!

AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH*deep breath*HHHHHHHHHHHHH*checks watch*HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH*rolls hands*HHHhhhhhh...

Halloween Wars - Week 2

Okay, *wipes blood off chin* we managed to make it past the giant Oompa Loompa with a butter fetish and the deep fryer, set aflame the shrieking harpy already doused in alcohol, and avoid the moaning pit of the damned ex-Food Network Star winners.

Only a few more feet and we should...

Shit!

If you don't think he just chopped off his own hand and is about to try it on the other, you haven't been paying attention.

That's right, it's time for this weeks edition of Halloween Wars - why does everything Food Network touch get destroyed?

Halloween Wars - Week 1

*cough cough*

I, I think I'm alive. Let me clear some of this dirt off my glasses. There. Did anyone else feel that spindly hand clutching at their leg before being wrenched down and down into this early grave?

No, just me?

Well, we best work our way out. I think I see a light up ahead and it's...

OH GOD NO! NOT AGAIN! RUN!

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into Halloween, Food Network is back to suck out your soul, spin it in the blender, coat it in butter and deep fry it.

Please, god, no more travel shows with Next Star rejects!

Happy Halloween

After 364 days of toiling and troubling it's finally here, the last witching hour.

Huzzah.

I mean, Yay! So happy and . . .

Okay so after finishing up the last of pumpkin carving yesterday as I was sitting down with a cool glass of apple cider and watching my raven dance in the candle light I started to feel the icy prick of the rhinovirus' claw upon my throat.

About every home and store bought remedy later and here I am in this early morn knee deep in late fall cold territory, dreading all of the decorating that we stupidly put off for today. This isn't the first time I've gotten sick around Halloween, but at least last time it held off until the day after. Exactly the day after in fact.

But ignore me, I'm sure you're just here for pictures. Sadly we don't have many/anything yet. I can show off pumpkins though.

This is the first year my husband wanted to try sculpting a pumpkin (too much Halloween Wars rots the brain apparently):

I had some insane plan to paint one of my tree forests then carve around it with the Dremel. I was coated from head to toe in tiny pumpkin guts flung about like blood on the set of Dexter.

At one point I even rigged up a makeshift smock by cutting three holes into a trash bag. I had to stop when my glasses got so coated I couldn't see.

This is why I leave the carving/sculpting stuff to my husband and sit happily in my paint room slapping pigment on canvas.

And because we still have one pumpkin left I carved out the dragon from Dragon Age, painted a bit of red around it and called it good.

Pumpkin carving does not condone itself well to mid 60 temps, the things were getting gooey and rotting so fast you could feel it while slicing into the bloody thing.

Happy Halloween. Now where'd I put that pseudoephedrine?

Edited to add: Even though I'm still dragging godzilla tail I decided to put my makeup skills to work today:

Halloween Wars - The Finale

We may have had to leave our one minority friend in the stalled car, break open the door to an abandoned fun house, hide in a pile of used clown hankies and then fall through the giant gaping hole in the floor anyone can see after our boyfriend was disemboweled for daring to have sex but we finally made it.

I can see the end of Halloween Wars in sight.

Halloween Wars - Week 3

Hello Boys and Ghouls, Crypt Keeper here to replace that dead wood they propped up to host this monstrosity of a halloween show. He wasn't so happy to go but chainsaws make for such wonderful bargaining tools.

Let's get this waste of a perfectly good night I could spend grave robbing started.

Halloween Wars - Week 2

The amount of Television watching in this house is so sad it actually made those little Nielsen diaries they send to you with five bucks cry a bit and grab it's little hat before Mary Poppinsing out through the chimney.

But come Sunday night, after a week spent scrabbling and crafting finally my husband and I plop down exhausted on the couch and try to zone out to what used to be the most bland offering of the cable line up: The Food Network.

Despite the inevitable slide to EXTREME! DANGER! WHO WILL SURVIVE THIS CHILI COOK OFF WHERE WE MAKE CONTESTANTS EAT LIVE BUGS! every cable channel makes towards  reality hell still we watch it. I hadn't intended to do a recap of any Food network show unless my life depended upon it (a bunch of people enter the stage, they make shit, someone gets money and we all feel a bit dirtier for it) but this is Halloween stuff and I'll happily take the bullet if a spider or witch is involved.

Right off the bat (snicker, I said bat cause it's Halloween and throwing around terrible puns is the best the FN writers can do) you feel slight stinging in your eyes, your skin goes clammy and your short of breath as an ominous voice echoes from poor ADR across the $20 set they stole from some kids play about the Three Little Pigs.

There, your worst fears are realized. Your own personal death is hosting this show:

It's the douchebag from Cupcake Wars, a show much like the Black Death that creeps in on grim reaper wings and next thing you know you're bleeding out of every orifice watching your loved ones convulse, screaming about Red Velvet.

I always wondered what Death looked like. For some reason I never pictured a Sears blazer, spiked hair from a 90's boy band and some of the most excruciating puns this side of a bubble gum wrapper.