Maria Duncan aka Shewholovesromance aka Mary J aka Aisling aka Maria Dunkan aka Cadburyrox aka Mary Durnan aka http://cadburyrox.livejournal.com/ aka I am too lazy to find the rest of the emails and really you can do your own google searches if you care to find more.
puts out a call for romanceland peace and good will toward men
I think… well I say pretty much what I think about it here:
Well Maria, I have found when people post under many different names be it to trash review or enter contests – it always comes out in the end.
And the only person they end up making look like an ass is themselves.
As for mean girls, yes they are all over in high school and it makes some sense that in high school it can bother. But as adults, we should be able to pick our water coolers and be happy with it.
Because telling other people how they need to think, express themselves or review a book is no better than the person ‘trashing’ or ‘bashing’ a book or author. In fact it is really the same thing. And of course what is bashing to one person isn’t to another. There is a pretty clear line, oddly enough many don’t see it and take things too personally.
As we learn when we are kids, if the stove is hot, learn to not touch it. If a blog makes you hot, learn to stay off it. Of course I am just wild and crazy that way and think the rabid fangrrl’s have as much right to the net as the mean girls.
Although I would have to say I don’t see the blogs that are ripping poor lil books to shreds. Either I am too much of a bitch to notice or visit the wrong blogs. I find it funny authors can think Bam is the shit, until it is her book she doesn’t like. Or frequent Dear Author and think it is nifty until one of them doesn’t like a book. Giving lip service to everyone can love or hate my book is fine, but like it was said, if the author has to point it out most likely she isn’t acting that way.
Now I have a completely different views on socks. And for some odd reason feel the need to blog about it.
And at the risk of being a mean girl, if you have a blog or a website and you run contests, you may want to keep an eye out for people entering under multiple names.
Oh and before anyone gets all bajigity this isn’t super secret info private email stuff but simple google search stuff anyone can find.
As I said… it isn’t hard to do… just google a couple of names together. I even added a link up top but since Maria Durkin, Duncan, Dunkan sometimes Aisling Durkan and even more names have now been emailed to me is crying why, oh why please explain why forth you are stalking me – as she sits on my blog.
The post I was gonna put on Alison’s blog but really since none of this is her fault I shall put it here:
You are preaching as well as changing your story from the first time I asked you about this.
There were not flatmates, there was one. And your story of the friend of a friends sister and such was weak at best. After I asked you about it and you stopped entering contests on my blog as well as it came to my attention a lot of people had already figured it out. I thought it was a done deal.
The fact that you no less than a few weeks ago pulled this shit again but tried in email vs on blog, and then today come on Alison’s blog singing happy, happy, joy, joy lets buy the world a coke crap annoys me to no end.
And I am two steps away from posting the emails, the post, the boards, your repeated cheating and so forth and so on. I get you didn’t think you were doing anything wrong. I understand you either don’t care or are looking for attention. I have heard the sob story.
My advice is stop it or get better at it. Either way keep it off my blog.
Bam is so totally the shit, dude.
I would also like to know where these “slash and burn” reviewers are. Man, if I hate a book… don’t I write a treatise about it?
Sheesh, it’s hard enough operating one blog, let alone running several blogs, each with different identities.
Bam, sod the treatise mate, more like effing War and Peace. *g*
Or frequent Dear Author and think it is nifty until one of them doesn’t like a book.
sniff. I’ll have you know Dear Author trashed one of mine and I survived. :OP Seriously, I love that site too much to stop going just because they didn’t like a book. Some people didn’t like it. Others did, as evidenced by the fact that it’s still selling.
I don’t enjoy getting bad reviews, but I’ll deal. Yeah, I prefer to know why…maybe it’s something I need to fix. But my world isn’t going to come crashing down on me over it. I’m not going go eat nails . Now if I read a review wherever who starts tearing into me personally, that might affect me differently.
But I’m also the kind of person who pisses people off from time to time, so I’m used to not having everybody love and adore me. I might get pissed, particularly if the attacks are personal or just plain false… which has happened, but I’ve learned enough the past few years to not hash it out in public either. For an author, that’s just plain stupid.
Really, I believe any *thinking* author is prepared for bad reviews. She won’t like it when someone tells her that her baby has two heads, has peed on someone’s carpet–and has a seeping rash, but she’ll survive. And having recently become a fan of reader blogs–even though I’ve had some writers warn me off them–I’ve decided to enhance my existing review-proof vest with chain mail, studs, and porcupine perfume. That oughta keep the mean girls from hurtin’ l’il ole me.
EC
Good god I can’t remember the last time I read one of Bam’s reviews from start to finish. Unless I napped.
Well karen as I said to someone else earlier no it isn’t easy, which is why there are fuck ups. Like I said before I have way too much experience with this shit from phileland. So yeah I know what looks odd, I know what to look for and I have been wrong once or twice. shush shi
I am far to cynical to have been caught off guard or surprised by the whole cheating thing. Which is why I posted about it in a very vague way, although don’t get me wrong I did contact every contest I saw the repeated posts at.
I had hoped to be shown I was wrong and it annoyed me when I wasn’t.
I am working on over coming my shyness and learning to speak my mind. But like any new skill it takes a while to learn.
EC hon… you are a very nice fit around here. And really, tell them to stop being such pussies and come play.
I have to say there are quite a few reader blogs out there that are more than author friendly. I know I try to be. But there is a difference in having seats open for authors and kissing ass.
I oh so suck as kissing ass. LOL but like shi said… if anyone wonders what I am thinking about something all they have to do is ask *g*.
The only thing is at the heart of it is to remember if something is a reader blog, author blog or fansite. And then follow the play book while there. I mean really going on an authors blog who doesn’t want opinion on their book and saying well I thought that blew. Is just as rude as an author discounting a review as well the reviewer doesn’t like me. Same thing with saying you are open to discussion and slapping hands if anything not happy happy joy joy is said.
At least that is how I see it, I could be wrong.
sniff. I come and offer my two cents and she tells me to shush. MEAN SYBIL
:OP
and you… kissing butt… hmmmm, gotta admit, the image isn’t exactly gelling for me.
Syb is the meanest bitch out of all of ’em. 😛
Jesus Christ, I feel like I’m defending my honour here!
There are 4 of us.
How do I prove that? I live in Ireland, you live in the US, I have no way.
We live together, we share a computer, it’s cheap, it works. We love romance novels, we like to win them.
Occasionally we have entered contests for one another when we are online. And we’ve won a lot! Don’t know how, but we have. And we have weird way of behaving online, a lot of it is poking fun at each other.
That’s where the problem lies. It sounds ridiculous, contrived, whatever. So after two of us won at your blog, we stopped entering for one another, and we tried our best not to enter where another of us had entered.
Which can be difficult with the email contests.
Me and Aisling spend the most time online, screwing around, we blog, but about two completely different subjects. She blogs about her life, I blog about books. The other two hate blogging, they enter contests when they’re bored at work and have no email.
I enter the most contests because I have insomnia. It was a good way to pass the night, with the perk of maybe winning something. Since I’ve started writing at night, I don’t really bother with contests anymore.
Cadburyrox is an inside joke between me and Ash. It’s why her email starts with that and I call mself that elsewhere on the web.
I am truly sorry for causing any confusion, I never thought I’d have to explain my life to you.
As you can see there is no sob story
I don’t even understand what you are saying, Maria. You enter contests for each other so one person enters four times on behalf of the other roommates? And that sometimes you go around the ‘net using each other’s “names?”
That’s bound to generate a lot of confusion.
We used to enter for one another. That stopped after me and Ash won here, we realized how misleading it was.
Cadburyrox is the name of a dog I used to have. Ash also loved the damn dog,. Cadbury is also the name of a chocolate brand which we are all crazy about. It’s as simple as that.
My livejournal is the cadburyrox one. Aisling’s is at http://coffeeblood.livejournal.com I would have given it earlier. I just wanted to check with her first.
I may be in the minority here but I’m going to say it doesn’t matter if Ms. Maria has a dozen flatmates, four sisters, an ailing great-auntie and an incontinent schnauzer. I don’t really care about her contest entering habits, though other entrants doubtless do want giveaways to be fair. Since I don’t enter them, I don’t give a shit. What’s Karen always saying? If it doesn’t impact me personally, I can’t get worked up about it.
What does interest me is her calling for reviewers to STFU and be nice at the expense of honesty. I never target an author personally, only the story, and if people can’t handle that, they can kiss my big pearly white booty.
Goodness, if I had a penny for everytime that blog post has been written up (the one by Maria Dunkherdonuts) I’d be one very rich lady and you ladies never cease to make my day…
…I love you guys take no shit from anyone attitude, you, Karen, the Ja(y)ne’s and Bam, don’t ever change!!!
Happy Friday!
I don’t tend to read romance novels, but Maria’s story makes no sense. If two of her flatmates use their computers at work, and she and another use the computer at home, why would there even be any confusion about them all being the same person? Wouldn’t the ISPs be different?
From I was told there is only one flatmate. And a sister of a flatmate and a BFF. Because if you at some of the contests she has entered where it is one ‘person’ after another, after another…. if ‘one person’ is entering for all ‘four’ that person is creating answers to the contest questions.
If I recall correctly, on contest asked something about neighbors. The way each of the ‘people’ answered there was no way they all lived together. One or two of them are sometimes married and was never a comment about one person knowing the other person and none of them commented on her blog.
Now I have friends who have checked out my blog and not commented. Of course they aren’t involved in romanceland either. Who knows, I have seen it done better and I have seen it done worse.