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	somnambulicious 2005-07-01 12:53 am UTC (link)
	I'm disappointed. One would expect that "professional writers" could come up with more cerebral insults to fling back and forth at one another. But this...? "You're not a REAL writer!" "Oh, yeah? Well, you're gay!" This is more like watching two monkeys in adjoining cages having a poo war. Still, it's entertaining. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	artimusdin 2005-07-01 08:19 am UTC (link)
	... I'll have you know your icon nearly made my bite my tongue off in an effort to keep from waking the family. heart (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	somnambulicious 2005-07-01 11:33 am UTC (link)
	Thanks! I just about DIED when I found out that it's a tanuki possessing Gaara. PH33R THE MAGICKAL TESTICLES! ...I heart your icon, too. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	threegoldfish 2005-07-01 02:39 am UTC (link)
	And the second post I read is already violating Godwin's. Score. (Reply to this)

	bankai 2005-07-01 10:56 am UTC (link)
	All I know is that I love that statue. The rest of it is just long-winded wank. You could get the same point across by typing: "You're a smelly doody-head!" Seriously. (Reply to this)

	azhidahaki 2005-07-01 11:31 pm UTC (link)
	It's like a professional school yard pissing match! And ugh...Harlan Ellison...he's like the playground bully... (Reply to this)

	fandom_bitch 2005-07-03 10:45 am UTC (link)
	Woo, Godwin's law AND Snacky's Law present in this wank. I'm impressed! And Harlan Ellison, great writer, and even greater asshole. I take what he says with a grain of salt, and then spit it out. (Reply to this)

(Anonymous)
2005-07-13 12:37 am UTC (link)

Some perspective: Paul went into some kind of manic phase, of late (I've been around him on horror boards for five years or so, now, and he's always been like this), and started telling everyone he was a genius who was writing thousands of words a day and picking fights with Mamatas and Brian Keene, both of whom bit to differing extents. In the middle of that, he also revived one of his longstanding recurring gripes on the Shocklines board and kicked off a longish thread about how bad the Horror Writers Association sucks ass. Gary Braunbeck, who is currently running for HWA president, invited him to join the organization and see for himself.

Dracon did so, and here's where we get into "he said/everybody else said" territory, because Paul keeps broadcasting his own version of what happened when he showed up on the HWA message board a month or so back where he's victim and star (as usual) and everybody dogpiled on him, led by Mamatas. I'm not reposting stuff from the boards, as that's frowned upon, I guess, but...this is about the polar opposite of what actually happened.

Paul's experience as an HWA member lasted a few days and consisted entirely of him starting fights on the message boards, fanning those flames as best he could, and then bitching about how obviously the organization was entirely about hating him and he wanted to quit but nobody would give his 2005 dues back. (Seriously. He wanted a refund.) As I understand it, a private collection was taken to pay him his fifty bucks and he resigned. All of this was clearly an intentional stunt on his part--the HWA was, for a lengthy period recently, basically a fan organization and reformed itself in the last couple of years to require minimum sales levels for membership. This has raised the ire of any number of amateur writers and non-writers who feel like they ought to be able to join, anyway, Paul loudly among them.

*That's* where the "tiff" really started. After the Stokers ceremony last week, Paul got on Shocklines again to crow because Nick didn't win (and at that, even people who also don't much care for Mamatas started crying "Boooooooo...") , but that actually came near the end of this mostly one-sided feud. I don't know why Nick continued to argue with him as long as he did, especially after Paul started a Livejournal and then started deleting all responses to it he didn't like, but that's his affair.

FWIW, I just joined the HWA and I think the statue's hideous. Apparently, they're also expensive. I don't know how much point there is to agitating for getting rid of the damn thing, though.

--Robert Lee

http://www.livejournal.com/users/spimby

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(Anonymous)
2005-07-13 12:49 am UTC (link)

"This has raised the ire of any number of amateur writers and non-writers who feel like they ought to be able to join, anyway, Paul loudly among them."

That was badly put--obviously, Paul's met the standards for membership, or he wouldn't have been able to join so he could resign a couple days later in a huff. However, he still thinks the HWA should be open to anybody who wants to join--he posted something a while back about what a tragedy it was that membership in the organization wasn't open to every fifteen-year-old horror nerd--and that's where the roots of this whole brouhaha lie.

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	kadath 2005-07-13 01:44 am UTC (link)
	Thanks for the background. I figured Paul was the nutter and Nick was just poking him with a pointy stick, but I really didn't know enough that I felt comfortable outright stating so. We're all pretty good at picking out the batshit insane ones around here, anyway. (Reply to this)(Parent)