Who’s infamous now?

[hackthis_archive]

In the last four days I’ve received two completely random e-mails regarding my writing and while neither one was harmful or malicious in any way they’ve given me pause, because target audience is one thing, completely left field audience is something well, unexpected.

The first e-mail was from a very nice guy who was inquiring about ‘The Terrible Conflagration Up at the Place.’ He had read the Bradbury story about 30 years ago, but couldn’t remember the author so he had gone digging and apparently had come up with my version. I gave him the original author and went on about my business, until he e-mailed me with another question about another story. I answered to the best of my ability, and hope that that’s that; but I had to wonder how he came up with my story, so I went over to yahoo and typed in the title.

The SSA posting is the first link.

How many people can say they topped Ray Bradbury? Exactly.

Still, it’s wild, and humbling in, ‘I wish this had been written better and WTF?’ type way.

The second e-mail was far more jaw-dropping.

In the autumn of last year, blunaris created an LJ design for me, and in thanks I wrote her a Smallville NC17 piece called ‘The Scientist.’ It featured a little known product called Semenex which a man is supposed to drink to make his ejaculate more palatable. Yes, really. Yes, I wrote this story. Yes, this stuff exists.

So, the e-mail in question? From the Semenex people.

They were writing to say how amused they were with the story, but how they felt that perhaps I was not writing from a users POV. Well, yeah. Female, you know. They were taking the all publicity is good publicity type route (amen) though. I think they offered me some freebies.

Anyway, this just goes to prove even when you think nobody’s reading your shit THEY ARE.

One part of me is vastly amused, but there’s another part that’s not. It’s the same part that’s screaming that I owe it to my RL to toss this fan writing lark before something goes awry, but I’m not going to. I don’t write under a pseudonym as I had no experience with such things when I first fell into fandom, and I’ve always tried to take pride in what I do (even when it sucks. How else are you going to learn?). If this all comes back to me later on, then I’m sure I’ll start singing a new tune and cover my ass accordingly, but for right now I say let’s keep rolling.

Life is short, and there’s no reason to leave the party before I have to, besides who knows who else is reading my stuff? It could be my English teacher from high school or my TA from Creative Writing. It could be my mailman! If it is, can you see about hooking me up with an issue of Flaunt or two?

FYI: The e-mail was entitled ‘Semenex and Poor Clark.’

We now return you to your regularly rescheduled trip to hell all ready in progress.




LOTRips: The Ripple Effect & Version 2.0
Smallville: Sulking Like Children in the Moonlight & Unwell

Note: I’m about to begin Hell Week, so if I’m not around or don’t respond it’s not anything personal.

Comments

[happyminion.livejournal.com]

Oh my god, you poor, hunted down baby!

*cackles*

This was so funny and paranoia inducing. My emails are *never* this interesting.

[slightlytricky.livejournal.com]

So, the e-mail in question? From the Semenex people.

Bwahahahahah*cough* Um.. That's just too funny! Woah. Now I'm paranoid.

*goes off to do a google search on some of her stories*

[goss.livejournal.com]

YI: The e-mail was entitled ‘Semenex and Poor Clark.

LMAO! oh my god that's just so freaky.

[georgeh.livejournal.com]

*LOL* That's too amusing! Especially the bit with the Semenex! Did they tell you the "proper" way to use the stuff, since apparently it was wrong? *laughs* Man, too amusing.

Thanks for sharing.

I worry about the pen-name things too, because I don't really use one either. Fortunately I have a common name, that I could pass it off as some other George, but still. Enough research will reveal its really me. It's discerning. =/

[greenet.livejournal.com]

On a related note, I actually got an email from someone claiming to be the writer of a song I'd included in one of my stories. The song in question is an obscure Norwegian techno beat, and the email was in Norwegian and everything, so.

I still don't know whether it actually was the writer of the song or not, but dude.

The email was quite nice, by the way, even if I don't remember quite how it went. :)

[lovelypoet.livejournal.com]

That happened to me a few years ago. I wrote a three story songfic series (Ack! and ew!) in Roswell using songs by an independent recording artist who had some songs on mp3.coom that I loved. I got email from her and while she didn't quite get the whole fanfic thing, she said she was happy that I liked her songs enough to use them in stories.

[embitca.livejournal.com]

Okay, those Semenex people are hysterical. Very good show!

[fearlessdiva.livejournal.com]

Dude. Weird. That's hilarious about Semenex. ::laughs::

I know what you mean about worrying about some sort of negative spillover into real-life. I'm somewhat paranoid about that myself, even though I've only ever heard of a couple of cases where anyone's fannish life had any kind of negative impact on their "real" life. One was a case where someone had a stalker that ended up outing them at work as a slash writer (the person worked at a non-profit with religious affiliations), which is a lot more personal and a lot less random than the sort of thing we're talking about here. And a lot of pro writers started in fan stuff and it doesn't seem to have hurt them any, so I think I'm being more paranoid than I need to be. However, I added code to my webpages to keep them out of google and googlecache, and I don't think I'm going to be archiving my work anywhere but my own site. I don't mind people reccing it with links posted, and allowing their rec pages to be googled, but I want to be able to pull the work itself off the net at a moment's notice should it become necessary. This makes me feel somewhat better about the situation, and I figure it's worth it for the peace of mind.

Also, re: "The Ripple Effect"? You're evil. Wonderful, but evil. I really liked it, the round robin-ness of it, and the oversexed atmosphere where anyone could end up with anyone, or everyone. But I WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED! I don't care that the whole point of hte story is that you don't know what happened, that anything is possible. I don't care that knowing what happened would ruin the story. I still want to know. Send me an email and just make up an ending so I can sleep at night, will you? Not even a fic snippet or anything, just a "it was Mr. Mustard in the study with the lead pipe," kind of thing. A sentence. One measley sentence.

[barely-bean.livejournal.com]

It’s the same part that’s screaming that I owe it to my RL to toss this fan writing lark before something goes awry, but I’m not going to.

While I'm glad you're not *clings to Zahra* yeah, these emails are a little freaky. Like you I don't write under a pseudonym and sometimes I'm like dude, why didn't I?

Holy *%^#$@!

[barbana.livejournal.com]

Ok I think I'd have passed out if that happened to me. Still, I'm glad you got some positive responses.

Thanks goodness when you do a search on Barbana all you find are Italian sites.

*wipes brow*

P.S. Really enjoyed both snippits.

[redfirecracker.livejournal.com]

And this is exactly *why* I *do* write under a pseudonym. ::: shudders ::: That was scary, in a oh-go-what-if-it-had-been-bad-mail kind of way.

I just went and googled myself. The SSA link is number five, surrounded by lots of porn links. Whew!