I don't follow Jane's Romfail Twitter channel. I am not good at the Twitter thing, for one, and I have also read enough bad writing without wanting to subject myself to more, heh. But a fellow Naughty Lady Who Likes To Watch From The Sidelines (thank you!) informed me that recently, author Ray Garton delivered bitchslap all around to participants in a recent Romfail session. Twitter can move quickly, so check out his Twitter channel while his responses are still there. His antics moved an aspiring author to blog in defense of the weekly event here, and Ray responded as well.

Of course I have my own opinion on this. Jane can do whatever she wants, and people who love Romfail have the right to enjoy and defend it. But I can also see where Ray is coming from. Folks like Jane and other readers have nothing to lose in conducting and participating in Romfail, but I always wonder about authors who also participate in such events. Yes, you can say that we shouldn't sugarcoat things or pretend that there is nothing negative in the genre, but things like Romfail aren't about "telling it as it is". Admit it - there's an element of mockery and laughter to be had at the author's expense.

Whether or not such mockery is deserved, there is no denying that authors who participate in such events and join in the pillory are not behaving professionally. I will have the same reaction if I learn that the author is involved in posting at Weeping Cock or LKH Lashout - I will find it hard to take the author seriously due to her behavior. This is different from an author reacting negatively to a bad review, let me make this clear, this is about an author taking part, unprovoked, in the public humiliation of a fellow author. I guess I am just old-fashioned/hypocritical (take your pick) to expect authors to be above such online wank behavior.

There is also the glass house element. Often, whenever I see an author commenting gleefully on a negative review on places like Dear Author, often behaving as if she's better than those hacks, I have to sit on my hands to stop myself from posting excerpts from the author's own works with comments that will puncture her misplaced sense of confidence. No author is perfect. I guess my main problem is, therefore, with how events like Romfail bring out the worst from authors when at the same time I feel that they aren't as infallible as they think they are. And for those authors who claim that they won't react badly if their own works at treated in the same way, I wonder whether we have a way to record those words and then their subsequent reaction when one pillories their work, if only for posterity.

It's not about whether Romfail is right or wrong. It's about how Romfail seems to turn some authors into escapees from the Fandom Wank asylum, behaving like those pigs in Animal Farm and making me cringe at how embarrassing such public behavior is.

But of course, that's how I see such behavior. Maybe they don't have any problem with their behavior. That's why you don't see me around things like Romfail. They may be fun, but they also make me cringe and unable to appreciate the works of the authors who take part in the ha-ha-ha's. Therefore, I try to remain ignorant of the proceeding as much as possible.

PS: Just realized that Ray also wrote as Joseph Locke, whose books I remembered as pretty fun.

PS2: He also wrote the novelization of that movie Can't Hardly Wait. LOLOLOLOL.