I wasn’t going to blog about stupidity, simply because I don’t want you all running over to check out the site I’m about to mention, providing them with hits and all that, but after researching who they are (which I wasn’t able to clearly identify) and what they do, I wanted to vomit. When I saw my name on their little site as part of a naughty list, I was amused. When I realized what they do to fill these little lists they make and how they operate in general, well, the Irish came out.

The Write Agenda came to my attention thanks to Gwen (a writer friend) who posted a link to an article written by Victoria Strauss. To be honest, I didn’t think any more about them until yesterday, when that same friend posted that she’d been listed on The Write Agenda’s author boycott list. Why? As far as we’ve been able to determine, it was because of Gwen’s original post on our Goodreads group where we all pondered what kind of dick would bother with such a hateful and meaningless site. There is no reason provided by them as to why she should be boycotted, just that she should. This appears to be true of many of the authors they’re boycotting. You don’t need a reason to boycott these writers, just don’t buy their books because The Write Agenda has told you not to. Yeah, sounds completely logical to me.

Now, I might have continued to ignore them as I’d done before, but when I checked out the boycott list, I noticed another page that looked interesting.  And look, there’s my name quoting a comment I made in OFW, listing me as a critic of their bullshit. I’m flattered at the quote, and I do believe they spout nothing but lies and nonsense, but the particular words used, really don’t prove any point. Love that they’ve placed Gwen at the top of their little critic list.

By the way, what is this list even about? Why is it there? What is its purpose? To me it proves this site is run by a group of paranoid bullies.

With these questions in mind, I clicked on their About Us page, which I thought should clarify who The Write Agenda really is, shouldn’t it? Let’s see:

 And yet, you can find them on Facebook. Just click the link very clearly shown on their site. If you should find them on Facebook all by yourself, then you can like their page, which is not at all promotional, and click links that go to their site, but not as part of a promotion of their site. Of course not. These folks don’t self-promote at all. Sure we could split hairs and agree that they don’t promote themselves individually. That might give a visitor to their site some idea of who the fuck they are. But they do engage in personal promotion in relation to their site, which is an extension of them as a whole. Still personal promotion folks. But I’m nit-picking. Let’s give them a point for not trying to sell their books or whatever else they might promote to the masses.

A little tip: As a group of writers, want-to-be authors and inquisitive wordsmiths, they must stop letting the “individuals” write their content. Grammatically incorrect (the entire second sentence, for example) and some minor typos and run-on sentences are rampant. Just saying.

If they managed to weed out frauds and liars on a broader basis, I might be willing to believe they have the greater good in mind. But they don’t. They’ve focused this entire site to a few individuals. Their favorite targets appear to be Victoria Strauss and Ann Crispin, whom I’ve found to be an invaluable resource to new authors, but what do I know? I’m just an f-bomb dropper, like Victoria. Oh, I should explain that. Let’s look at The Write Agenda’s opinion on Victoria’s statement that she hated the “fucking” sidebar on Facebook (you know, the one that pretty much everyone on Facebook is annoyed to some degree by):

We should be offended, they say, because she said fuck. Fuck is a sign of arrogance. My goodness, if fuck is outlawed I’m …fucked.

Be warned; if you say fuck on your personal Facebook page, you are unprofessional and evil. Saying fuck proves that you cannot be trusted and all of the work you’ve done to protect authors and their work is a grand conspiracy to…do something really fucking bad. Shame on us.

In addition to several rants about the Writer Beware folks, they hate anyone associated with SFWA. For example, they went so far as to rate all of SFWA “officer” Sean Williams’ many novels with a 1 star rating in order to drag his overall rating down. Um…childish much? This is disgusting behavior. They claim to be a group of authors? A group of authors would not routinely defame, insult and attack other authors. Sean’s only sin is being affiliated with SFWA. If he’s committed some other horrible infraction (maybe he said fuck or worse, fuck-shit-damn) it’s not listed on the Author Boycott list. Just his name and affiliation with SFWA. Seriously? No, authors and writers they are not. These people expect to be taken seriously with their retarded lists and random attacks which have no valid reason behind them?

They wonder why people laugh at them and write them off as losers with nothing better to do with their time when they use words like weinerdogs (two words, by the way, or at the very least, add a hyphen) and flying monkeys to insult these people?

This group trolls the Internet just looking for people to hate. They search for their name and for the names of those on their watch list (whatever you call it) and weed out those comments that might be perceived as slanderous or defamatory and post these comments on their page, often without context.  By the way, what is a Defamation Watch? I tried to learn more about this ominous and frightening list, but you can’t access it without a password. So um…yeah.

Renee, these people aren’t worth the time it took to write a blog post. Why bother? I bother because there are new writers out there who might see this site and think they’ve found someone who can help them navigate the treacherous waters of the publishing industry. After all, don’t they promise to enlighten authors and help them make an informed decision? Yes, but from what I can see, they don’t follow through. Listing only one side of the equation, ranting, making anti-this person and anti-that person lists, and fraudulently rating books which you’ve never purchased nor read is not helping anyone. In fact, based on their claims in their little About Us nightmare, it makes them hypocrites; doing the very things they’re criticizing Victoria and Ann for.

This site does not help anyone make an informed decision. It attacks people and organizations with proven track records of being an honest and trustworthy place for authors to find information. My only conclusion as to why they would attack these sites is that this “group of individuals, authors”, etc. is in fact personally affiliated with one of the people or companies that their victims are warning us about. Why else would they post such ridiculous things as a boycott list? If they were authors, true writers, they’d never do what they’re doing.

I’m blogging about it because well, they entered my personal space and used my words in their little venture. They also rated a book which I and 19 other authors worked very hard on with 1 star without reading a single page. It was FREE jackasses, FREE. You might have at least peeked inside so that your review could hold some weight. I’m not saying the book is brilliant or even good, but at least read the damn thing before rating it. I doubt these folks would know good writing if it slapped them in the face anyway. They did this because one contributing author of said book spoke against them. The review they posted was removed, but the rating remains. As does the false ratings they gave to hundreds of other books that they never read. Who does that? Liars. That’s who.

I believe in helping new authors. I believe in allowing everyone the opportunity to speak their mind. I do not believe in attacking people based on association rather than facts. You want to use my name in your little smear campaign? Fine, I’ll give you something to quote:

The Write Agenda does nothing to help or inform new authors. The Write Agenda is a personal vendetta against a group of individuals and all those who dare to associate with them. It uses fear tactics to shut people who might question their motives up, and attempts to ruin writers who have done nothing but try to offer sound advice. If you consider The Write Agenda to be a useful group who are there to help you after reading everything they’ve got posted on their site, then you deserve to be fucked.

And, just so no one’s confused, I am in no way personally affiliated with SFWA or Writer Beware. I do not know Ann or Victoria personally either. I’m just allowing folks to see both sides of the story, so you all can make an informed decision.