just had to share this... got an email a bit ago from someone claiming to be a writer in need of help calling herself 'sara'... said she'd come across me somehow and checked my posts and wanted me to take a look at a piece of her work... and guess what she sent me? ray bradbury's 'the highway' with no title or by line, presenting it as if it was her own writing! as i've been a great fan of the master's works since his first stories saw life in print and have read just about everything he'd written, including that one, i was incensed, naturally, my first instinct to read her/him/whoever out royally, for the deception... but after cooling down a tad, my impish self got the better of me and i have to confess that i did one of my usual red-ink jobs on it, faking 'problems' with this and that, and ending with a faux-assessment of the sender's 'promise' as a fiction writer, if said 'problems' were addressed and basic skills honed... needless to say, after apprising her/whoever of my having turned her prank back on her, in reply to her 'gotcha!' she preferred to continue believing i'd taken her seriously... saaaaad!!! the moral here, dear forum members is to not try to teach a very old dog any new tricks! love and hugs, m
worse than her trying to trip me up with a fraudulent submission of someone else's work passed off as her own? i might have, but she didn't include a title or a by line...
This I like. The only thing that makes sense to me is that this person wanted to confirm a belief that you would find fault with her work, no matter what. Maybe she had submitted something to you earlier under another name, or maybe she gets a lot of negative comments and really just wanted someone to say, "Oh, what you have is fantastic! I wouldn't change a thing -- you have a real future as a writer." So she convinced herself that everyone is against her, and since her writing really deserves that praise, she was going to submit something written by someone already considered great. Then when she got the corrections, her belief was confirmed. That was all she needed, and it didn't matter what you did afterward. She'd expect you to say you already knew.
no, she actually told me that she was trying to fake me out, because she didn't respect either my own writings on my website, or what i say about others' on the forums... had a chip on her shoulder from the get-go and was out to discredit me... i really don't feel good about having played along and faked the assessment, but it just didn't sit right with me that someone would palm off a noted writer's work as their own and not expect me to notice... guess i'll have to do penance for taking the master's words in vain, huh? :redface:
I thought your response was gold. haha There is a shortage of sass in the world and it's much more productive and less harmful than flat out anger. That's pretty awful that she felt the need to discredit you like that. People like that have some serious issues. It takes a lot of energy to harbor that kind of anger over something so petty.
Yup, yup, yup. The Lesson Teacher. I actually think of this 'person' as an archetype, one of the scaffoldings I use to build characters. The sad irony of this archetype is that The Lesson Teacher is always one who has him/herself missed an important life-lesson. Just think what a sad little shriveled life that is...
true... and i do the mentoring for free, so if she didn't like what she saw on my website, she didn't have to do anything... why she wanted to try to make me look bad, i'll never know... thing is, now i'm gun shy and will be wary of anyone who asks for my help... saddest of all is that a mentee from last year emailed me right after this whole thing played out and my first thought was it could be the scammer again, using another name, so i gave him a hard time, made him provide proof i'd actually helped him before...
Far too true on both accounts. I don't think we can ever really understand where people come from on that sort of thing. I've had people get on my case about some pretty ridiculous things that had no real impact on them. It seems to usually be derived from some perceived slight and then blown out of proportion over time. I'm sorry to hear that. I hope that you have some better experiences that help you feel better about this poor one you had. It's hard not to question people after something like that. I am certain it was, as I said above, something rather small that got blown out of proportion. I think it's an isolated incident and not a hint at larger trend to come.
*HUGS* If it makes you feel any better I've always found your advice to be sound and useful. I think a lot of people on here feel the same.
Not a bad retort. I would have congratulated the "author" on a fantastic work, then recommended she entitle it "The Highway" and submit it to the same magazine Bradbury's original was published in. Then, perhaps leave a comment lamenting that she hadn't written the story back in the 60s or 70s.
I feel like there is a story in there somewhere... Yeah, this is what makes it so nutty. Who knows why some people become obsessive about small things and spend so much time and energy to - what, just make someone feel bad? That is a shame.
Aargh, I can't believe someone would do that, abuse your free help! And what's also horrible (aside from personal nuisance) is that it affected your trust in your mentees which, as a consequence, affects them. Nice chain reaction, dickwad-Sara. What was s/he thinking anyway? That published works are perfect? That there's nothing that could be improved? Pfft, someone always comes up with something to improve. Nice comeback on the prank, though, kudos for that! I'm sorry to hear about this, all the best to you mammamaia!
Oh, dear. One of those times when you say: "Damn, wish I'd thought of THAT." Ach well. What a bummer. I hate it when people 'hide' behind the anonymity of the internet and do nasty stuff like that. It's even worse if you end up feeling like a fool for having taken them at face value—and what else can you do, really? Hope this phase passes and you start enjoying your mentoring again.
Actually that would be a fun writing exercize critiquing the masters! This is always hard, recovering after a scam. I know I've been burned before, in a different area of helping people and it can turn you cynical - especially if it's happened more than once. I learned that I wasn't going to let anyone stop me from being helpful but I would go about it in a different way to weed out the insincere and the scammers. It takes time though, but don't let anyone stop you from doing good! Maia.
thanks for the moral support, mes amis!... you're right, i can't let one rotten apple ruin the whole barrel... but i'm still going to be checking out material sent to me, with google's 'plagiarism' thingy from now on, though, just in case another creep slips in something i'm not that familiar with... love and grateful hugs to all, maia
Really sorry to hear about that, Maia. I hope that the responses to this thread tell you how high a regard your advice is held in around here, and how much you're valued.
It's a rather pathetic thing to do (I'm speaking of the person who sent you Bradbury stuff) but people like that come once in a while, if you can just shrug it off would be best. She wouldn't have 'proven' anything even if you didn't spot it. It's just a sad person, forget her and move on. Don't let it spoil anything.
