Mean-Spirited Cowardly Bitches
I guess it's time to call out all the yellow-bellied blog bitches who demean my work because of that book "Love and Consequences."
A few years ago, I met a woman named Margaret "Peggy" Seltzer. She presented herself as a gang member from Los Angeles. She told me she was sexually abused by her older brother and, since her family was in denial about this, she was shunted into foster care. Her "birth father" was a member of the Quinalt tribe and her "birth mother" was white. When Peggy moved to Oregon, she went and visited her tribe. Her "bio dad" had shunned his Quinalt roots and she went to the rez to make good with her people. She received monthly checks because she was half native. The first time I met her, I was wearing a blue shirt. This is when she told me about being gang raped by Crips. I saw that the color blue deeply traumatized her, so I never wore blue around her again.
She showed me some of her writing about her life. She is a very good writer. I did an email intro between Peggy and Faye Bender, my agent. I have passed along other writer intros to Faye as well, but this one led to a book deal. As a published writer with an agent, I feel that it is good form to help out other writers when and if I can.
The weekend before last, Faye called me. She said, "Inga, I need you to sit down." This is when I found out that Peggy's entire life for the past decade is a lie. This elaborately constructed life/lie was in place long, long before Peggy ever gave me her writing. As far as I know, her daughter and baby-daddy also believe this life/lie. Everyone who has met her for the past ten years knows her to be the person she describes in the book.
Faye asked me if I would speak to a New York Times reporter. I agreed. Big mistake. Now my name was associated with a highly seasoned pathological liar. Worse, two anecdotes from Peggy's life/lie made it into Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Devil. (Two free Cunt stickers to the first 10 people who can find them!) And so now a whole slew of bloggers and blog commentors have taken it upon themselves to attack me, personally.
You know, it is really easy for people to sit in front of their computers and say whatever they want. There is absolutely no accountability because these folks are, largely, anonymous. Generally also having no experience writing books, their critiques of the publishing process is completely retarded. (Retard means to negate growth. Don't email me and tell me I am disrespecting mentally-different thinkers who should never be referred to as retarded in the first place.) AFTER Faye Bender told me I need to sit down, I, like every other human being Margaret Seltzer has met in the past ten years, was THEN afforded the luxury that the mean-spirited bloggers came into the situation already knowing. People have no call to judge me, my work or anyone else involved with Love and Concequences.
Some bitches attack Sarah McGrath, the editor. Here's a little insight. Peggy and I spoke frequently throughout the three years she was working on the book. Not long after the James Frey scandal busted out, she calls me all pissed off. Sarah was "grilling" her about the veracity of her book and Peggy was absolutely indignant.
Furious.
Outraged.
I told her that Sarah HAD to do that. It wasn't personal.
Sarah McGrath is not stupid, lazy or irresponsible. She had the exact same experience as everyone else Peggy Seltzer came into contact with. Damn fools piss me off, talking shit. Casting a pall on this woman's career for a few days of gleeful meanness, like bullies on the playground.
Dear lord we're an immature folk.
People have the gayest time ridiculing James Frey's publisher, Nan Talese, because she said, "“I don’t think there is any way you can fact-check every single book. It would be very insulting and divisive in the author-editor relationship.”
THIS IS TRUE.
It is not fodder for completely uninformed ridicule.
My relationship with my editor is intimate. A good editor is equal parts therapist, police and dominatrix. And the policing a good editor does, is not around "fact checking." They police your potential, and pull your very best out of you. There is just no place in that relationship for the editor to sit back and wonder, "Hmmm, maybe this writer is a sociopathic pathological liar and I should spend a day playing private investigator."
If I found out my editor was checking into my background, I would be horrified and very distrustful during all future interactions. This does not make for a good book. Now, of course, checking public records will become a routine matter, and will hopefully be the task of ANYONE other than the editor.
Around the same time all this was happening, the media and internet went wild over how "fat" Lisa Marie Presley was. I have always felt bad for Lisa Marie Presley. People are forever scrutinizing the woman's life and comparing her to her dad. It must really suck. A couple days after everyone had SO MUCH FUN saying mean and unnecessary things about her, she issued an angry statement, announcing her pregnancy. No one apologized or said, "Fuck man, that was really shitty of us to say such mean things about you."
I swear to god I am just freaking about how mean people are. What's to gain? Are people so hurt that they need to compensate by saying mean things about others?
Oh wait. I should stop.
I can see the bloggers can now be mean to me by saying I am comparing myself to Lisa Marie Presley. Oh, goodie, that's right! I am bloated with a sense of self-importance and must corraborate this by putting myself in the same social strata as The King's Daughter.
Why are people so mean and cowardly? I mean, really, why? Is this a collective consciousness thing? A social repercussion of the anonymity of the internet? Isn't that why pedophiles and other sexual predators love the internet to much? We all know that pedophiles and sexual predators are the biggest cowards taking space on the planet.
I feel very beat up and attacked by all of the mean things people have written, so this is certainly another form of predatory and abusive behavior.
What is up with all this shitass behavior in our culture?
A few years ago, I met a woman named Margaret "Peggy" Seltzer. She presented herself as a gang member from Los Angeles. She told me she was sexually abused by her older brother and, since her family was in denial about this, she was shunted into foster care. Her "birth father" was a member of the Quinalt tribe and her "birth mother" was white. When Peggy moved to Oregon, she went and visited her tribe. Her "bio dad" had shunned his Quinalt roots and she went to the rez to make good with her people. She received monthly checks because she was half native. The first time I met her, I was wearing a blue shirt. This is when she told me about being gang raped by Crips. I saw that the color blue deeply traumatized her, so I never wore blue around her again.
She showed me some of her writing about her life. She is a very good writer. I did an email intro between Peggy and Faye Bender, my agent. I have passed along other writer intros to Faye as well, but this one led to a book deal. As a published writer with an agent, I feel that it is good form to help out other writers when and if I can.
The weekend before last, Faye called me. She said, "Inga, I need you to sit down." This is when I found out that Peggy's entire life for the past decade is a lie. This elaborately constructed life/lie was in place long, long before Peggy ever gave me her writing. As far as I know, her daughter and baby-daddy also believe this life/lie. Everyone who has met her for the past ten years knows her to be the person she describes in the book.
Faye asked me if I would speak to a New York Times reporter. I agreed. Big mistake. Now my name was associated with a highly seasoned pathological liar. Worse, two anecdotes from Peggy's life/lie made it into Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Devil. (Two free Cunt stickers to the first 10 people who can find them!) And so now a whole slew of bloggers and blog commentors have taken it upon themselves to attack me, personally.
You know, it is really easy for people to sit in front of their computers and say whatever they want. There is absolutely no accountability because these folks are, largely, anonymous. Generally also having no experience writing books, their critiques of the publishing process is completely retarded. (Retard means to negate growth. Don't email me and tell me I am disrespecting mentally-different thinkers who should never be referred to as retarded in the first place.) AFTER Faye Bender told me I need to sit down, I, like every other human being Margaret Seltzer has met in the past ten years, was THEN afforded the luxury that the mean-spirited bloggers came into the situation already knowing. People have no call to judge me, my work or anyone else involved with Love and Concequences.
Some bitches attack Sarah McGrath, the editor. Here's a little insight. Peggy and I spoke frequently throughout the three years she was working on the book. Not long after the James Frey scandal busted out, she calls me all pissed off. Sarah was "grilling" her about the veracity of her book and Peggy was absolutely indignant.
Furious.
Outraged.
I told her that Sarah HAD to do that. It wasn't personal.
Sarah McGrath is not stupid, lazy or irresponsible. She had the exact same experience as everyone else Peggy Seltzer came into contact with. Damn fools piss me off, talking shit. Casting a pall on this woman's career for a few days of gleeful meanness, like bullies on the playground.
Dear lord we're an immature folk.
People have the gayest time ridiculing James Frey's publisher, Nan Talese, because she said, "“I don’t think there is any way you can fact-check every single book. It would be very insulting and divisive in the author-editor relationship.”
THIS IS TRUE.
It is not fodder for completely uninformed ridicule.
My relationship with my editor is intimate. A good editor is equal parts therapist, police and dominatrix. And the policing a good editor does, is not around "fact checking." They police your potential, and pull your very best out of you. There is just no place in that relationship for the editor to sit back and wonder, "Hmmm, maybe this writer is a sociopathic pathological liar and I should spend a day playing private investigator."
If I found out my editor was checking into my background, I would be horrified and very distrustful during all future interactions. This does not make for a good book. Now, of course, checking public records will become a routine matter, and will hopefully be the task of ANYONE other than the editor.
Around the same time all this was happening, the media and internet went wild over how "fat" Lisa Marie Presley was. I have always felt bad for Lisa Marie Presley. People are forever scrutinizing the woman's life and comparing her to her dad. It must really suck. A couple days after everyone had SO MUCH FUN saying mean and unnecessary things about her, she issued an angry statement, announcing her pregnancy. No one apologized or said, "Fuck man, that was really shitty of us to say such mean things about you."
I swear to god I am just freaking about how mean people are. What's to gain? Are people so hurt that they need to compensate by saying mean things about others?
Oh wait. I should stop.
I can see the bloggers can now be mean to me by saying I am comparing myself to Lisa Marie Presley. Oh, goodie, that's right! I am bloated with a sense of self-importance and must corraborate this by putting myself in the same social strata as The King's Daughter.
Why are people so mean and cowardly? I mean, really, why? Is this a collective consciousness thing? A social repercussion of the anonymity of the internet? Isn't that why pedophiles and other sexual predators love the internet to much? We all know that pedophiles and sexual predators are the biggest cowards taking space on the planet.
I feel very beat up and attacked by all of the mean things people have written, so this is certainly another form of predatory and abusive behavior.
What is up with all this shitass behavior in our culture?
posted by ingalagringa at
Monday, March 10, 2008
<< Home