This bloody knife is from the header design on a brand new blog called The Bludgeoner.
(I suspect the "Finalist" graphic on it means this art was stolen.) The
Bludgeoner blog was apparently created for the sole purpose of
attacking not only my book, The Vampire Kitty-cat Chronicles, but me and my professional work.
He makes the following statement (I’ll refer to this person as male, though I have no idea what gender he/she is; it may be sexist of me, but I don’t feel that a woman would go to these extreme lengths or utilize these gory and threatening graphics).
“Do you think your book is made of the right stuff? Can it survive a bludgeoning? Send to me electronically and I'll review it. If it's good [sic] I'll sing your praises. If not [sic] things will get bloody.”
For one thing, I didn’t (to my knowledge) send my book to the Bludgeoner. For another, anyone who reads on to see what he did to me is certainly not going to be volunteering their work. I believe this is a flimsy attempt to pose as a legitimate review blog as cover for a personal attack. The Bludgeoner starts in on me with this with:
“Ray Ramey is an editor- sort of. He runs a blog called flogging the quill where writers can submit their work to be reviewed. He's also written five books and fired his agent after she couldn't sell them. He hasn't been able to find another agent since. He seems like a nice guy thought [sic]. He is always very polite to writers and readers. I suppose there are some people out there who believe you can't bludgeon a nice guy.
“Watch me.”
And he does, even though he is unable to spell my name correctly—a blessing, I guess. I wonder how he got a copy of the book—I only sent out e-ARCs to a small number of people, and it seems highly unlikely that this person bought the book. If he is one of the people who requested the e-ARC and already held his hatred of me, then the request was under false pretenses. His assessment of the novel:
“It's just like a Hoover, because it sucks!”
He likes to refer to the reviews that have appeared on Amazon:
”… it's received one five star, two four stars, one two star and a one star. (note: there are 3 four-star reviews)
“Of course that doesn't seem all that bad so you might just be tempted to buy his book. Stop! Poor children are staving. If you want to be generous [sic] donate money. It's important to remember he's using his blog to launch the book (unsuccessfully.) However [sic] a few readers seem to have bought his book or at least left him a good review because he seems like a nice guy. If friends are being stingy with a five [sic] that either says a lot about the friends our [sic] a lot about the book. Probably both in this case, but I digress. The point is, the people who aren't his friends are rating this book as a two and below, which is probably accurate. They're not emotionally invested in his feelings.”
For the record, I don’t know any of the people who posted reviews. A friend of the blog posted a 4-star review on Amazon UK and told me that she’d done so deliberately because she felt that people figure that 5-star reviews are all from friends and thus suspect. Well, none of the reviews for either of my books were posted by personal friends.
And, yes, there is a 1-star review (the person started out liking what she was reading and then was offended by content) and a 2-star review (the pace and plot churn were too much for her taste); no book is for everyone, and that’s fair. I can handle bad reviews, and I know that other readers love the book.
Oh, and there’s this gem, where he criticizes the grammar:
“From plot, [sic] to pacing (see books targeted at 7-10 year old's [sic]) to basic grammar [sic] this book misses it's [sic] mark.”
For this person’s information, I had the book reviewed thoroughly by a copyeditor who knows The Chicago Manual of Style, the style guide for the book publishing industry.
Then the Bludgeoner makes it personal
He first rips apart my “resume,” which is actually a very brief bio posted on one of my blogsites, not a resume at all. He feels that I “fudge” things because it’s so brief and not filled with specifics. And he likes to twist things, i.e.
“The fact that he doesn't tell us how long he was a [sic] employed writer means he doesn't want us to know the duration.”
It’s a brief bio, not my CV.
And then he attacks my professional qualifications and abilities.
“. . . he's not qualified to be giving lectures or editing books for pay.”
You’ll have to read his blog for the “reasons” why.
Since the Bludgeoner spent so much time “researching” me, I wonder why he didn’t refer to the testimonials from writers I have edited, who gave me the testimonials after the edit for which they paid their hard-earned money. If you’re curious, they’re here.
As for teaching, I will refer you to a sampling of the comments I
received from the 110 or so writers who attended my last workshop at
Write on the Sound. The conference asks for ratings and comments—the
huge majority of the ratings for my workshop, on a 5-point scale, were
5s (the largest amount) and 4s, and the few negative ones mostly had to
do with the fact that there wasn’t enough time allotted for the
workshop, a phenomenon due solely to an unexpected level of enrollment
that was beyond my control. Those quotes are here, on the right side of the page. They are representative, not all-inclusive.
I’m worried about violence
This knife is what the Bludgeoner uses for his photo on his profile page. He has chosen a violent name for his blog and features two bloody knives. There was a report on the news yesterday morning about a waitress who was murdered by a stalker.
I’m findable. My address is out there, and when I do workshops in other places, I let people know. This attack, the brutal blog name, and the bloody images make me nervous. I think they are a threat. I don’t think I’m being paranoid, not in this violent world where a stranger can attack with impunity.
I just found this on his blog:
1. I have too much time my hands. If that's not enough explanation for this blog, see number 2.
2. I'm crazy, obsesive [sic] and very very ill.Beyond that, I like to eveserate [sic] people. Call it a hobby if you like. I'm sadistic that way. I don't care about being fair.
I’ll tell you something; this makes me question whether I should continue blogging.
What troubles me is why
What I can’t get my head around is why this has happened. To the best of my knowledge, I have done no one harm enough to warrant this venomous attack. It appears to me that this person has a great deal of anger about something, and I’m a handy, vulnerable target with no recourse because he hides behind the anonymity of the Internet. Don’t you think that, if this person were not in some way cowardly, he would use his name? Why is he hiding?
And it looks like there’s more to come; he has also created a blog that uses the title of my book, THE VAMPIRE KITTY CAT CHRONICLES. Using this, he could impersonate me to say vile things. I am going to ask the police about this, but I live in a small town that has little cyber crime, and am not hopeful. If you have any recommendations, please let me know.
I’m trying to figure out how to report this to Blogger, but their automated abuse categories don’t match what’s going on here.
Does anyone out there know how to send an email to someone at Blogger?
An appeal to The Bludgeoner
Come out from your anonymity. Contact me via email or on this blog and let me know your name and, more importantly, what you hold against me. You can hate the book all you want, but your other attacks are clearly personal, yet I don’t know you, as far as I know.
If any FtQ readers can suss out who this is, please let me know. The language on the Bludgeoner’s post reminded me immediately of a commenter last month called “R.B.” who said very similar things. He, too, seems to have gotten the book, though I know not how. But I won’t accuse that person without solid evidence.
I wish 2 things for you, Bludgeoner
That whatever is bad in your life that has driven you to do this goes away and life is good again. Truly I do.
And then, when life is good again and you work and work and work to write an entertainment for people and put it out there, this will happen to you. Truly I do.
I'm only human.
An apology to writers in the flogging queue
As we used to say in Texas, my dobber is down. I dreamed about this the night after it arrived. It has thrown my writing off-stride as well as my editing/critiquing. So I’m going to leave this post up for a few days while I regain my composure. Your flogging will be a little delayed, and for that I apologize.
Friday Fun
Lastly, I promised “Friday Fun” podcasts from the novel. Well, this Friday is no fun for me, but I try to keep my promises. It's below.
© 2010 Ray Rhamey