There is always this impression that authors are reclusive and just plain “weird”, and this doesn’t help the image.

Sorry, I don’t go to other authors and advise, and I don’t mentor. At some point we all have to be responsible for our own words and actions. I doubt any of us who participate on-line–writers, readers, reviewers–haven’t made mistakes, crossed lines, responded poorly. It’s what we do about it afterward, and what we learn from it that makes the difference.

Judging VL’s response to critical reviews of her work, I can’t imagine if I were to presume to advise her on behavior she’d respond very well in any case.

I’m sorry, but any amount of “positive” past entries in Victoria Laurie’s blog is no excuse for her despicable behavior to ChariDee. I read through ChariDee’s blog entries about Victoria Laurie and no where was she crossing the line. Victoria Laurie crossed the line with her snarky remarks on her blog entries, not to mention sending a threatening letter to ChariDee from her “lawyer”!! No one here is ganging up on Laurie or “bullying”. What everyone is doing is standing up to the *true* bully, in this case Victoria Laurie, and coming to the defense of the victim here which is ChariDee and any other person that had the misfortune of ticking Laurie off.

I’ve read the blog entries that Laurie wrote, and I would NOT call them sarcastic. There were several, every time Laurie felt as if she were “wronged”, she’d go on a rampage of hate-filled words. I know of one in March, another in July, and then of course the ones relating to ChariDee (all deleted, but the first two are cached on Google, and the third someone was helpful enough to provide a word doc of it). They were petty, cruel, condescending, hateful, etc. A rant of rage and totally uncalled for. Simply childish, unprofessional, and IMO the ravings of a person throwing a tantrum gone to the extreme. To try to understand Laurie’s perspective is doing nothing but lessening what she did to ChariDee and others that crossed her path. To try to “understand” her is akin to saying her rantings have legitimacy and somehow were okay and that she had a valid reason for doing so.

No one is painting Victoria Laurie as the “villain” here. She did that all on her own. What everyone is doing here is coming together to let her know she won’t get away with it again. As I mentioned before, this event with ChariDee is *not* the first time Laurie has gone off and spouted hateful and cruel words, and if it weren’t for everyone here standing up and making it *publicly* known to everyone, I bet Laurie would have continued her tirades.

Anyways, it would be nice if she’d come clean and apologize. Laurie’s MO is similar to the DAM fiasco a while back. DAM never apologized for her bad behavior, she just “disappeared” probably hoping everyone would forget. Laurie has done the same. Instead of having the courage and integrity to apologize and ask forgiveness from the truly wronged parties in this case, the victims of their harassment and bullying, they choose to go into hiding.

This is standard MO of a bully, and until people put a stop to it by pointing out their bad behavior, the bully will continue to target victims they view as weaker than themselves. So now, I think it is only right and doing the moral thing to out these bullies and show everyone for what they are.

A lot of people would be thrilled if VL would apologize but so far all she’s done is delete everything. I know what I am most disappointed in is the fact that she A. makes fun of the fact she puts people that have had disagreements with her in the past in her books as less than appealing characters B. has a “lawyer” attack ChariDee for pointing out her crappy behavior (crappy behavior she chose to post on a PUBLIC forum anyway) and then C. Does not apologize for either A. or B. and decides to disappear for awhile when everyone stands up for the people she is attacking.

You’ll notice that Nora Roberts went back and apologized for behavior she knew crossed a line. I believe VL should do the same but I’m not holding my breath.

All but her last 2 books are keepers for me, and now I’m conflicted. She will be recieving no more of my money, but I really did enjoy the books I kept and I’m feeling conflicted here. I do hope she’s reading this blog and these comments, because she NEEDS to learn from this experience. I was a *huge* fan, and now she’s lost me. Her immature behavior has turned me off of her books when before I was an auto-buyer of them. I understand being upset by a review, but ranting about it on your blog, telling readers to vote them down and then bragging about creating a gross characters with their name is just a bag full of wrong- and the fact that she doesn’t understand that just shows how out of touch she is. She comes off as a bitchy high school girl who lashes out at anyone who dares question her actions… I wish she could have been more like her character Abby Coopr, who I could never seen acting like this.

Chari, are you by any chance near a law school? A lot of law schools have clinics where the students (under the stern eye of a law school professor) will do work for free as a learning experience. Also you might check with the state bar in your state for options. Ours has a list of attorneys who practice in certain areas and who have volunteered to do some pro bono work.

At this point in my life, I cannot afford to hire an attorney

Methinks we need a blogger defense fund. I’m happy to donate – tell me where and how, Charidee.

As for outing you – fuck that shit. I’ve been dealing with that for nine years and I won’t stand by for someone else suffering what I’ve been through. Seems to me Laurie should be getting a few nasty lawyer letters right now.

Anyway, I just got home from picking the kids up from school (I left work with just enough time to do so) and saw all of these WONDERFUL comments.

I agree with everyone that Jane is my hero.

I will be posting another blog post about this in an hour or so (motherly duty dictates I feed the kiddos). I had no idea that Laurie called me out. Thank GOD for the whole ‘nothing on the net disappears’ thing, or else I would not have the chance to read what she said.

Since I do not want to seem like an attention whore by asking ya’ll to visit my post, I’ll give ya the gist of my post here (and nah, I haven’t written it yet LOL) but basically, I never meant for things to get this out of control.

Victoria Laurie did.

I have not yet had the chance to read the entire blog she posted, but that is the next stop on my To Do List, as Thank GOD for Jane, I have the chance to do just that!

I happen to hold the title of “Worst Timing Ever” (and I’m thinking maybe we should run a contest to see if you can beat me at this title! Maybe Penguin Publishing will sponsor it *BG*)

As I understand it, Ms. Laurie has outed me. Since I have yet to read the entire post, I won’t say what I want. I will say this: As a blogger – both personal and in the reviewer category- I have never given enough information that a random person could find my children. Here’s the thing. When Laurie outed me, she could have put my children in danger. Until that point, whatever (though my sleepless night may have said differently). BUT, if by your stupidity you put my kids in danger, THE GLOVES ARE OFF!

I receive books from Ms. Laurie’s publisher to “review”(and I use that term loosely) on my blog. I have no problem with her taking me to task. I DO have a problem with her endangering my family.

At this point in my life, I cannot afford to hire an attorney. The consultation fee alone was enough to make this ‘Po dunk town MaMa’ cringe, however, I appreciate all of you guys for offering to help me.

Thank YOU to Jane and Dear Author for bringing light to this situation. THANK YOU to all of you that have left a comment on my blog. I am blessed beyond compare.

ChariDee

I think its ChariDee who is the heroine for standing up to Laurie.

Very true. It would probably have been much easier to just quietly delete everything once she received that letter. Good for her — and I hope her meeting with her lawyer today went well.