My two cents on the whole thing!!

With a lot of these author scandals—most of them, in fact—I think ‘There but the grace of God—and a really, really horrible case of PMS—go I.”

Because, let’s face it, we all have lapses of judgment we wish we could undo. And then I hate when people pile on, too. I’m pro-redemption – if the person acknowledges the mistake, seems willing to make amends, let them back into the fold. Have faith people can grow. That is what it is to be human, at least in my mind. That is usually my position. I mean, it’s not these people are murderers or whatever!

Also, I think about how horrible it would be to wake up in the morning, and dread turning on your computer because you know more people will be expressing their hate for you out on the web. That seems so horrible to me! Because waking up in the morning turning on my computer to say hi to the world is one of my favorite parts of the day. Okay, does that sound pathetic?

Though, I have to say I was pretty mad about John Locke this month. Not for just buying reviews—I understand the impulse to do that. It is hard to have a book that is floundering and you’re desperate for it to do well, and you just think more people need to read it, and if only, if only… I so understand that, though I would never actually buy reviews myself.

What I was really mad about was that he bought hundreds of reviews and they were a big part of his success, then he wrote that book on how to sell a million books, and didn’t say anything about how buying reviews contributed to his success. I mean, dude! Don’t write a how-to-be successful book when you have a secret weapon for success that you keep secret! It makes chumps out of people who read your book and fail!

So that seems somehow more wrong. I mean, it’s kind of outrageous.

Is he sorry? That is a genuine question because I don’t know. I would have empathy for him if he was sorry, if he said he felt bad. I always want the person to feel bad and make amends and come back to the fold. It satisfies something deep inside me for story resolution.

Maybe it’s the writer in me, but even if John Locke thinks it’s all funny, and laughs about his bought reviews and his millions of dollars and fooling people with his book, I still picture him sitting alone at his desk in the morning and turning on his computer and reading how people think he’s fraud with a kind of little pang.