I received a precious e-mail today. The e-mail is from one “Poet Sam” – clearly an address specifically registered for the sake of cowardly bile-dumping. Gory details below.
As a published author,
*snort*
I was amused to stumble upon your website.
Please. I bet you a hundred bucks and a bottle of my favourite cognac that, due to the fact that you have my e-mail address, you knew me waaay before you “stumbled” through here. You’re just too much of a coward to sign your name below your drivel.
Real writers don’t have blogs.
Neil Gaiman wants to have a chat.
You, at this point in time, do not have a chance to become a real writer. It isn’t my intention to encourage you. Now you have also started to publish fake fairy tales?!… What individual would publish these (an individual other than you), let alone spend time reading them?
Since you ask (I do read between the lines, pumpkin) – I’m not planning on submitting them anywhere in particular at this point in time, hence their inclusion on this blog. I do submit my “realist” prose and essays.
You seem to have admirers, though I wonder how many of these people participate in the charade because you happen to be somewhat pleasing to the eye?
They only read me for my body! *sob*… Seriously though, does anyone read a blog because they think the author’s cute (I don’t really consider myself cute, btw)? Am I missing something? I mean, I doubt Tila Tequila gained a huge MySpace following solely on her rhetorical skills – but then again, neither does she write stories about naked old women.
I would not, however, be contacting you if I did not think you were talented. Perhaps if you applied yourself to your craft, you could produce results that would not shame your compatriots: Gogol, Bulgakov, et cetera.
They’re happy in the afterlife. Leave them alone. The living don’t haunt the dead – it’s the other way around, nitwit (a great idea for a novel, though – and I’ve got dibs. HA!).
Instead you just prostitute yourself and your talent in abhorrent ways.
Slut [sluht] – noun. Definition: woman who sleeps with someone other than me.
If I were to make an educated guess, I would say that you are a sad and lonely person.
As opposed to the happy and well-adjusted people who send anonymous hate-mail to former friends.
Natalia A. 
You seem to have admirers, though I wonder how many of these people participate in the charade because you happen to be somewhat pleasing to the eye?
well, speaking as someone who’s never actually laid eyes on you, you could have a horn coming out of your forehead and both eyes on the same side of your nose, and I’d probably still dig you.
I don’t know what this guy is talking about. “fake” fairy tales? what constitutes a “real” fairy tale?
what a jerk.
ZOMG.
I’m a blogger and a published author. How will I survive the contradiction?
That’s quite a creep, Natalia.
Awwww! I don’t need to get the horn removed after all!
Oh, and sorry Lisa. Your published author ID will be confiscated. And your work ritualistically burned.
Darn it! Well, it’s not like I have any work at the moment.
Your fairy tale was good, and was more in line with the older, bloodier versions than the Disnified stuff we have now. It’s just not possible to call it “fake” or “bad” and be an honest person.
Dear Meatsack Sam:
Many authors blog, in fact, many people’s blogs have been turned into books! Imagine that? In fact, I suspect more real authors blog than send stupid, oh so superior emails to other writers in order to tear them down in a manner which speaks of serious jealousy and other assorted bullshit and issues (aww, poor baby, is Natalia prettier, smarter AND more talented than you are? Survey says…)
As for her chances at getting published, becoming a real professional writer and all, oh, I’d say they’re pretty good. How many poems, stories or books do you have published, by the way? I mean, do you have Stephen King and Tom Clancy shaking in their boots or something? New York Times Bestseller, are you? I also seriously doubt Natalia’s desire to write hinges upon you approval and encouragement. You undoubtedly do not rank that high on her list of critics. Also, cupcake, her fairy tale was entertaining, and the fairy tale itself is one of the longest standing, most popular forms of lit in human history, based on the tradition of oral story telling, and passed on and down in cultures world wide for centuries…so don’t knock it if you want people to ever consider you a “great” or even satisfactory storyteller.
As for Natalia’s success being based on her looks? What, are you jealous? I think she’s a damn fine writer and I’m a hetero female with zero interest in sleeping with her. How lame can you be, really?
And no, cupcake, you wouldn’t be contacting her if you weren’t a totally fucked up creepy ass egomaniac. If she’s never going to make it as a published author, why bother saying you see she has talent? Oh right, because you are a fucked up creepy ass egomanic who some how has managed to convince himself that in the grande scheme of things, what he says means shit. Hate to burst your bubble, kid, but not so. As for the “shame of her compatriots”, what, did you contact the otherworld and ask them their opinions? If so, you have a great future on the psychic network!
Ohh, my favorite, let’s call the woman we are obviously somewhat obsessed with a prostitute, the greatest insult one can lay upon a female (or some shit like that) and tell her to stop using her powers for eeevilll. Gimmie a fucking break. Unless Natalia is sleeping with men for money, she’s not a prostitute. I am a whore, I can say that shit. The good girl bad girl crap just doesn’t fly when it’s written by somone like you, asshat. So, why don’t you take your own amazing “talent” and go use it for something useful, rather than acting like an ass on Natalia’s blog?
If I were to make an educated guess, I would say that you are a sad, spiteful, attention craving, overconfident prick who absolutely bases his total self worth on how much “better” he is than other people (even though he is dead fucking wrong) and gains no self affirmation whatsoever unless he is tearing someone else down.
There is a word for that: It is Pathetic.
Go on now, go cry into your pillow, write your own best-seller, get out of mom’s basement, consider yoga or something, go on…
Isn’t it extraordinary what people feel they have licence to do on email??? You have it right, Natalia, just stand back and wonder at the portrait of mental health problems on display. We should just feel sorry for him.
omg, what a loser douchebag. “poet sam” ffs. Hey, Poet Sam, I’ve got an poetical type poeme for ya:
Roses are red
Violets are blue
you’re fucking pathetic
now piss off.
As I read this I couldn’t help but think of Ron Burgundy when he says “You know, I’m kind of a big deal” or something like that. It would be funny if it wasn’t so creepy. If this jackass is published anywhere it’s probably in the police blotter.
It would be funny if it wasn’t so creepy. If this jackass is published anywhere it’s probably in the police blotter.>.
yeah, that.
ick.
oh, and as for “fake fairy tales”, meaning…well, what, now? fairy tales that don’t come in his Little Golden Book with no pictures? fairy tales with a known author, to be slightly more generous?–well uh again, hello, Neil Gaiman? Angela Carter? Marget Bloody Atwood? Anne Sexton, Mr. “poet?” Hans Christian Friggin’ Anderson for that matter? I could fill up the fucking page? apparently Captain Underoos there is as ill-read as he is ill-mannered.
I’m sure he’d argue that it was a real publishing credit. Oh, and call you jealous of his success. And cry.
It’s amazing how many men respond narcissistically to Natalia’s blog — i.e., they criticize that her personal blog and writings for not meeting their particular cultural (or other) needs. I was one of them, but at least I could be brought to my senses. Poet Sam criticizes Natalia for submitting her experiments in writing via a blog, but probably “Gogol, Bulgakov, et cetera” shared their rough drafts with friends privately before they submitted their work to a publisher. All writers do. My guess is that Poet Sam is so ashamed of himself as a writer and person that he resents Natalia’s apparent comfort in submitting her work online for criticism.
Note to Poet Sam: It’s okay to be imperfect, whether as a writer or as a human being. It’s a way of being a work in progress. Some of us need to progress more rapidly than others. You can start progressing by reading Natalia’s blog without reading it as an implicit source of shame for yourself. Then you could really learn something from it, maybe things about yourself and about writing, and you might not have to find yourself so “abhorrent,” or if you did, you could learn how to change yourself.
Correction to my above post, line 2, where it reads, “they criticize THAT her personal blog …” — delete “that.” It represents an incomplete revision.
See, Poet Sam? Admitting that I’m imperfect isn’t lethal (but not comfortable, either). You can be imperfect and still read this blog and profit from it. But you’ll have to learn to feel uncomfortable at the same time. Quite a balancing act.
Mercy, that man needs an enema.
I don’t want my fairy tales to be REAL, what a horrifying thought! 😛
I’m not sure how you could have a fake fairy tale. You can have good fairy tales and bad fairy tales, old fairy tales, and new fairy tales. I just don’t get what a fake fairy tale is. I mean, once it’s written, you can’t exactly deny that it exists.
Perhaps it’s made of plastic. Or inorganic cheese.
Or maybe it’s inscribed on the DNA of fleas!
Sorry, I couldn’t help it.
Hey Natalia,
When someone goes on the attack you know you’ve hit a nerve and someone desperately wants you to shut up and/or go away. (I speak from recent experience…)
Hate mail can be considered a badge of honour, and an affirmation that you’re rattling someone’s cage. It’s in a way almost comical to observe the impotent angst of losers who, try as they may, just can’t intimidate you.
So you gotta know you’re doing something right. Keep it up, girl!
Renegade,
“If I were to make an educated guess, I would say that you are a sad, spiteful, attention craving, overconfident prick”, you said.
I must disagree. That person (I’m not so sure about the gender – and I guess (s)he’s not, either) isn’t, cannot be “overconfident”. The e-mail oozes lack of confidence, masked under a huge superiority complex, probably childhood issues combined with several personal setbacks (most probably in the heart department, but also in society) and an intense (perceived) feeling of rejection. Odds are that person is over dominant, perhaps even aggressive in bed, but with disappointing sexual performances; this energy, unspent, is likely to sublimate into outer aggression, because of the torn, twisted ego problems arising from any form of sexual disabilities (and I’m not talking physical ones).
Oh, that’s not my conclusion. I summoned a psychiatrist friend of mine to perform text analysis. And, Natalia, if you’re so cute, show yourself! All I’ve seen so far is your writing, and I’m not really a font “artistic lines” fan!
Dear natalia. Yeah… I read all the girls’ blogs because they’re pleasing to the eye (the girls, not their blogs). Not.
Interesting that the former friend didn’t actually think it would be more constructive (or destructive, if that was their intent) out his/her real ID to you.
As Jim Morrison sang, “People are strange”.
I think I have a pretty good idea of who this person is, based on the writing style. If I am correct, this person is indeed very disturbed and not confident at all – although trying to seem that way. Well, actually, they’re disturbed – whoever they are.
LMM, well, the only reason I read you is because you’re spankaliciously hot (and know a thing or two about a good picnic) – but we shall overlook that for now.
Oh, and James, I got your message – I’m definitely not freaked out by this e-mail, thank you. I just think it’s sad that someone who I used to know pretty well would go create some fake e-mail address and start sending me this crap out of pure spite.
you take things well. i look forward to the day i step into my local bookshop and see your name on a book cover.
That’s really nice of you to say that. Thank you.
Ironic as Trolls used to only exist in made up Fairy Tales, now instead of living under bridges hoping to eat naive little children they pop out of the ether to tease and mock people who live lives they wish they led… who happen to write Fairy Tales.
I’m not sure how you’re doing it Natalia, but you do attract a very literate sub-genre of Troll. Keep track of the IP addresses just in case they try to pop up dressed as sheep.
Hm.
Gaiman was mentioned. I also read John Scalzi’s, Jo Walton’s, Alma Alexander’s, Anaar’s, Thorn Coyle’s, Suzette Elgin’s, Pamela Dean’s, Taylor Ellwood’s, Ursula Vernon’s, and a few others, and know of a fair number more….
It’s funny how discussions of one’s creative work so often wind up getting maiden/whore language thrown at them, isn’t it?
Keep writin’ Ms. Antonova
cuz “You’ve got Readers!”