Be Nice

At times, trying to write an authorial e-mail to someone who is deliberately trying to get a rise out of you is like trying to speak French through gritted teeth (try saying je suis épuisée with your molars clenched. Go on, I dare you.)

Like this guy who queries me about possibly publishing something on his web site. It sounds like a semi-pro offer from the subject line, so I open it, and it turns out to be another damn reviewer "informing" me that he's publishing this hatchet job, and here's a copy of it, cut and pasted in the body of the e-mail 'cause by now he's figured out I don't open attachments.

Here's how the first draft of my response goes:

Dear Moron Mr. Smith,

I don't know who the hell you think you are you, or why you decided to send me yet another pompous overwritten toddler tantrum-level detriabe your review of my novel you know, unlike those fifty pages you've been re-writing since high school, in the drawer to your left. I appreciate your invitation desperate cry for attention to respond with a good kick to your posterior rebuttal, but I never read trashreviews. I wish you would crawl back into your hole and leave me alone the best of luck and you'll need it with your future endeavors. Jerk.

Authors aren't supposed to be candid; we're supposed to be nice. And I think most of us try. There are a few notable authors who go berserk and start threatening lawsuits if you say anything negative about them on the internet, probably because (and someone had to explain this to me) they spend half the night googling their own names.

I don't do that, so I guess that's the attraction.