A Writers Tale by Laymon Richard

Author:Laymon, Richard [Laymon, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi, epub
Tags: Essays, Memoirs, Biography, Writing
ISBN: 0963136771
Publisher: Deadline Press
Published: 1998-06-10T02:41:00+00:00

Why should mean-spirited reviewers be allowed to attack us without any fear of retribution?

Most of us, most of the time, tend to laugh off vicious reviews. And many such reviews are funny, because they’re so idiotic. But the reviews do hurt. You know they do. We read them and we get a sick little feeling in the pits of our stomachs even when we know the review is trash and the reviewer is a dumb puke.

They make us feel rotten, but we say, “Even a bad review is better than no review at all. Publicity is publicity.”

Maybe so.

But a lot of people out there haven’t yet discovered our books, and they are being turned against us when they read reviews that make our work look like crud.

Suppose a potential fan hasn’t yet read any of your books.

Suppose, before he or she gets the chance, along comes a piece of misleading garbage written about it by someone with a grudge. This person, who might’ve absolutely fallen in love with your stuff, never gives you a try.

Thanks to someone who hates your guts and has a forum.

Thanks to your tribe of enemies.

My tribe includes David Kuehls, Linda Marotta, Ellen Datlow and Stefan Dziemianowicz.

Their reviews aren’t reviews at all, but personal assaults committed on someone they don’t even know and had no reasonable cause to hate.

These are ruthless, gleeful muggings.

I want everyone who reads this article to know that their reviews of my work are based on their own little secret grudges and agendas and have little to do with the piece of fiction that they are purporting to review.

I also want everyone to know that I consider the publication of such reviews to be a personal attack on me by the publisher who provides a forum to these muggers.

Furthermore…!

Hey, my friends, let’s hear from you. Who is out there nailing you? Time to name names and kick butt. The creeps have been mucking with us, unscathed.

Time for us to do some scathing of our own!

Write in!

If nothing else, you’ll have a good time, you’ll be giving moral support to their victims, you’ll be letting a rather significant corner of our horror community know who is out to get you, and you’ll really piss off the reviewers who already despise you. Need anyone ask for more?

That’s my article. Unaltered, unexpurgated, unimproved.

Mike Baker was happy to publish it exactly as I’d written it.

I felt as if I’d tossed a hand grenade into a crowded room full of enemies.

I wasn’t exactly present to observe the results, but I know for a fact that all four of my targets got hit. I heard about it from people who knew them.

And I grinned.

Vengeance is wonderful.

Not only did I strike out at my four reviewers, but I attacked on behalf of every writer who’d been ambushed by such people.

From what I hear, the article caused a stir. Not only were copies of Afraid being snatched up, but photocopies of “The Lizzie Borden Syndrome” were making the rounds.

Apparently, it was the talk of the “horror community.

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