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Okay so here’s the deal. There’s this author named Laurell K Hamilton. She’s famous for the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series, which is like—500 books about this woman named Anita Blake who lives in a world where vampires and humans exist side by side. Cool! Do vampires pay taxes?

This series has always managed to fire up my imagination. Which is good because my dad turned off the heat in my basement boudoir. Whatever. I'm not going anywhere, you prick!

Anyways, she’s written about 500 books of the series. Oh, I’m sorry, twelve. But people love them! Okay, not all of them. But she’s written other books too! There’s this other series called about Meredith Gentry. Her friends call her Merry, which I so am!!!

Merry is a mortal Faerie princess hiding in LA. I guess she's a lawyer or something. I love Law & Order! Jareth would be such a great district attorney, don't you think??????

Laurell is really educated when it comes to fairy tale lore. Because she uses the words “Seelie”, “Unseelie” and “fay”. Eileen says that the word “fay” is completely bullshit. But whatever. You know she's one of those people who is all like, “Thanks for instructing me on what pages the sex scenes are on instead of, I don't know, focusing on plot”. She is SUCH a killjoy. I mean it totally makes sense that in Labyrinth Jareth is “fay” which is a fairy. Which means when Hoggle kills the fairies in the beginning he's killing Jareth's PEOPLE on Jareth's orders! OMG I am SO writing a story about that! With lots of velvet.

Okay, so, even though Laurell has written all these fabulous books, people decided to be real jerkfaces about it. Especially when it came to the Anita Blake series.

People were like, all over Laurell’s message board saying mean things! “Your story arc is weak and inefficient”, “I no longer care about the characters”, “Why in God’s name can’t you spell?”. Mean stuff that people only say to like, Britney Spears or their mom or something.

Whatever. They’re all just jealous hags who can’t walk in purple stilettos while also managing to take a zombie, a werewolf and a vampire on. In that way.

But Laurell decided she should be honest with her fans like Anne Rice was. Because authors who write about vampires have so much in common (no, not the need to correctly interpret vampire lore. Whatever!).

This is what Laurell wrote:

And the flags go up

I wasn't going to post this blog. It's one I wrote back in February when Jon and I first realized how mean some people had gotten on the guestbook on the blog. But today when I read over the blog entries that Darla and Jon had made I accidently went back a screen or two and saw some of the messages on the board. Shame on the handful of nasty, jealous, individuals. We don't owe anyone an apology for anything we've done. But I'm loosing track of the apologies that people might owe us. Yes, my grandmother is dying, but not because of a second stroke. And the change since her 94th birthday is not that great a change, unfortunately. She has been ill for a very long time. Do I really have to say that I'm aware my grandmother is dying to strangers. Yes, you are fans, readers, but you don't know me personally. Do I really have to share details of my life that only my friends deserve to know to keep some of you from being cruel? I went up four weeks ago with my husband, and daughter to say good-bye to the woman who raised me. I wanted Trinity to see her before it got too bad. She did. We did. There was no Hallmark moment. I did not expect one. But we went, we said good-bye, and I knew the news would eventually be bad. Or good, she is in so much pain now. You don't want to loose them, but you understand that they are tired of hurting.

Is this what some of you want, my pain? Not happy that I don't share my innermost torment? Books not enough? Blog not enough? 99 percent of my fans are some of the nicest, niftiest people on the face of the planet, but to that other 1 percent I say this. No I won't say it. I have deleted several choice things here. But I won't say them, because maybe that is what the nasty-minded noisy 1 percent want. They want me to be as mean-spirited, cruel, and rude as they are. Well, not today. Maybe that small ugly percentage will wear me down and I will finally loose my temper publicly. I hope not. But today I am a grown-up, who was raised by a strong woman who taught me that you are polite to strangers. That you are nice to people if they will let you be. That was the way I was raised and that is the way I will behave.

What follows is the rest of the post I wrote some months ago. Enjoy, I guess.

Darla and Jon tell me that I really don't want, or need, to read some of the posts that have prompted Jon to think the guest book has out-lived its usefulness. There was a time, not so long ago, that I would have insisted. I would have read all the crabbiness, but I've grown up since then, or maybe I'm just tired. I'll vote for tired.

Jon is going to put up a link to the moderated board. Apparently, some of you guys that were unhappy because the moderators of the main board were not allowing you to call names and say cruel things, decided to come over to the blog. The guest book was unmoderated. It was a place where you could speak, and maybe, just maybe, I might see it. I never get on the board. But a few of you, a small, but vocal minority, have forgotten that the guest book was a privaledge not a right. So, like any privaledge that gets abused, it goes away.

Now, some of you are going to say, she just can't take criticism. That Jon and Darla are keeping me away from the fans that would tell me the truth and bring the series back to where you want it to be. You, the vocal minority, started complaining to me, and Jon, on the tour for Narcissus in Chains. You complained that there was too much sex, and that she shouldn't have dumped Richard. You guys actually made me doubt so much I went back and reread the scene. Anita didn't dump Richard, he dumped her, for being more comfortable with the monsters than he was. So the most vocal, the most cruel, those that called other fans that didn't agree with you names, most of you that have been the least well-mannered have wanted the same things. One, you wanted less sex in the books. Two, you wanted Richard to win. You differed on other stuff, but that was your main desires.

Cerulean Sins was the next book, then Incubus Dreams. Did you, of the vocal minority, notice a trend in these books? Richard was almost non-existent in CS, and I had to fight with my subconscious to get him into ID. And the sexual content? Is it going up or down? I think up, definitely up.

I did not do it on purpose, it wasn't in the front of my head, but my subconscious has always been contrary. You tell me I can't do something, or shouldn't do it, or try to force your preferences on me, and I have to really fight not to do just the opposite of what you want me to do. It wasn't until somewhere near the end of Incubus that I realized all your complaints both hearing about them third hand, and in person on tour was effecting me in the way I just described. I can't stop doing something if I don't realize why I'm doing it. Now I do, but you know what, I'm going to have to take a nod from Ms. Rowling. She said in an interview that nothing anyone says, or wants, will change a single word she's writing in her wonderful series. Well, folks, guess what, me either.

But unlike Ms. Rowling, you are having an effect on me, one I keep fighting against. A very negative one. You tell me that there's too much sex, and part of me thinks, you ain't seen nothing yet. You advocate Richard, and it makes it hard to write him as a character, because every time I deal with him, I hear the ugly echoes in my head of you.

You are allowed to express your unhappiness, but politely. Not just to me, but to other fans. For all of you who have been complaining, and not just the vocal minority, here are some examples of things that can be said in moderated space:

I would like more mystery and less interpersonal relationships in the next book. (Me, too.) I would like Anita to end up with Jean-Claude. I would like Anita to end up with Asher and Jean-Claude. I would like Anita to end up with Micah. I would like Anita to end up with Nathaniel. I would like Anita to end up with Richard. I would like Anita to end up with Nathaniel and Micah. I would like Anita to not choose and keep everybody. I'm a Damian fan, why can't she pick him? (A variant of that.) I'd like to see more sex with Damian. I'd like to see more sex with Asher. I'd like to see more of Asher on stage, period. I'd like to see more Jean-Claude. When is Jason going to take one for the team again? I would like to see (insert character name) do more of (insert activity) with Anita. Oh, and some would like Asher and Jean-Claude to be a couple so that Anita and Richard could be a couple. There's even the, Ronnie and Anita should be a couple contingent. We'd like to see Anita do her job more. (Me, too.) More police action please. More with Marianne and Verne's pack. More vampire politics. More furry politics. More zombies please. When are we going to see Willie and Angel-fangs again? More Edward, please. When will Olaf come back?

I've covered most of the different complaints, though not all. I've left out the personal attacks on me and my husband. I've left out the fans that wanted me to kill Micah, and have Anita pin his leopard hide to her wall. (I am not making that up. A fan asked, and meant it.) The last few are just mean, folks.

But seeing the previous list, tell me how am I to please everyone? There is no way, so I shall please myself, because in the end if you don't please yourself, then what is left to you?

You are all allowed to disagree with the direction the series has taken, or who Anita is dating, or sleeping with. Feel free, but be nice about it. You can say the same thing but in a polite manner and it won't be deleted. It won't be censored. But the moderators on the board do not allow personal verbal assaults on other fans, or on me, or even the moderators. Be nice, or play somewhere else.

The arduer is a major metaphysical ability, and curse/blessing. It cannot be brought into the series and then fixed just like that. Anything this powerful should have consequences, and a learning curve. I've always planned on Anita getting to the point where she can control the arduer and not have to have sex every few hours. (And already I hear some fans complaining that I'll be cutting the sex down. We actually have vastly more people who love the higher sexual content than hate it. They just don't get mean about it, so they don't get as much press. And by the way, as the sexual content has gone up, so have the sales of the book. I didn't plan it that way, but it's worked out that way.) I'd always planned on the arduer being controllable so Anita can go out of town as a federal marshal. The arduer traps her here in St. Louis, unless she takes a harem for food. You can't do police work that way, not out of town. So, have patience, and it will calm down. I honestly don't know where her domestic arrangement will go. I didn't plan on us being where we are. Anita is more contrary than I am, and every time I push one person over another, she digs her feet in and does the opposite of what I had planned. A trait we share, for good, or ill.

But I will not rush the transition. I will not hurry my overall plot because some of you are not happy with it. I am sorry you seem so unhappy. If you are truly that unhappy with the direction the series has taken, then stop reading it. Stop reading what I write. There, simply, fixed. If you don't like it, don't buy it, don't read it.

If I was as rude and nasty to my fans as a few of them have been to me and to my husband, you would be screaming about it. And you'd have a right to complain. Let me clue you, all of you, just because a person is a celebrity, in a small way or large, they are still people. If you wouldn't be this nasty to your friend, or neighbor, then why do you get to be that nasty to someone just because they write a book, or acted in a movie, or sang a song. Does being an artist mean that common decency no longer applies?

As for those who claim I'm in an ivory tower, well it's my tower, and if I want not to listen to people call me names, or speculate on my sex life with my husband, then I'm entitled not to listen. All of you complaining that I isolate myself from what you believe to be the truth, remember that you aren't right. Your opinion is just your opinion, not right, not wrong, just your opinion You are entitled to it. As I am entitled to mine. It's a free country, last I checked, and that means we are all entitled to our opinions. But being entitled to an opinion doesn't make you right.

Okay, when I read this I nearly cried. I was so upset I could barely finish my HP/Pitch Black Crossover Fic! OMG you guys. Laurell is SO upset! Everyone is so mean to her!! And for what, huh? What's wrong with a seplling mistake anyways huh? Or if you're grammar kinda lacks?

Whatever. Anita Blake is SO gonna kick your asses. After she's done having sex with that guy. And that girl. And that mitochondrion. Yeah!

Laurell Hamilton is the coolest. Have you seen her website? It's the coolest. She's sitting around all these digital skulls and she's totally pretty, like in that “my ears are like corn husks against my head” kinda way. So exotic.

But jeeze, all her readers have been complaining about her awesome books! I thought Goths were gentle people, as sensitive to feelings as they are to fluorescent light in pottery barn. But obviously not. Weird!

Like, who do these fans think they are anyways? What, you think you can voice your opinion about a book? Hello, Laurell is so much better then you. She writes about vampires and fairy princesses! So when Honeysauce4040 posts a mean comment on Laurell's message board--that's not cool. So what if Laurell has a personally endorsed website, message board, guest book and fan club. Those aren't for opinions! Gawd.

When will people realize that the Internet is not a place to talk about what you think about things! It's a place to build shrines to awesome authors like the Greeks did for their gods.

Also, Hermes? SO hot. I wrote a songfic about him and Demeter. Totally original. It took place in the Buffyverse. Awesome.

I mean, Laurell is so cool Bankrate interviewed her! Hello, they're like the "the Web's leading aggregator of financial rate information"! You think James Patterson could land a hot interview like that? Please.

In the interview Laurell talks about how she used to be sooooo poor. She was so broke ass she lived off of social security! Eileen told me once that her dad didn't even have electricity in the Old Country. But I was like, “he's not a famous authoress is he? Just a drunk mick” and Eileen started to cry. Then she punched me in the face.

“I had put a vampire story and a horror story together to get into the writing program. It wasn't like I hid what I was going to write. And what I learned in my junior year was that the head of the department thought she would cure me and teach me to write something worthwhile, and when she realized she couldn't convert me, she decided to ruin me so that I would never write. She told me that I was a horrible writer and that I would never publish. She sliced me and diced me and served me on toast. She did her best to make sure I would never write. She told me I was a corrupting influence on the other students. So I had to leave the writing program, since she was the head of it.”—Vampire Hunter Sinks Teeth Into Merchandising

I so know how she feels! I wrote this zombie love story and my creative writing teacher panned it and I cried and cried and cried. Then my mom was like, “Now that you're thirty, maybe you should think about moving out?” I was SO angry.

So who can’t totally understand why Laurell has issues with spelling, grammar, storyline, plot and characters! She was poor her writing teacher hated her. She probably couldn't afford a dictionary and then she tried to get a dictionary from the writing teacher and the writing teacher wouldn't give her a dictionary and was all like, “No, for you must be destroyed! Fantasy/Sci Fi is evil and HG Wells was Satan! I am the head of the English department, therefore all powerful! I order you to wander the cornfields of our land barren and lexicon-less!” OMG that so happened!

Laurell just wants to write you guys. The coffee mugs, the t-shirts and the posters have nothing to do with it (this is so cute!!!!)! She wants to feed her Muse, which also kinda looks like her wallet--OMG COINCIDENCE.

Okay so if that isn’t proof about how Laurell is so cake, look at this:

“With two bestselling series featuring supernatural heroines under her belt, one has to wonder if Laurell K. Hamilton is truly in touch with a world beyond ours.”

OMG Amazon.com said that! Amazon.com is so awesome because they sell Ipods! And seriously, Laurell wrote TWO heroines--that is like, a lot! What author has ever come up with TWO supernatural heroines?!

I am so excited about the latest novel of the Anita Blake series!

“Fans of bestseller Hamilton's vampire hunter Anita Blake will be thrilled with at least one aspect of this transitional 12th installment (after 2003's Cerulean Sins): Anita finally resolves her relationships with werewolf ex-boyfriend Richard Zeeman and vampire boyfriend Jean-Claude. They'll also be pleased to see Anita finally get comfortable with her own behavior, despite crossing many lines--sexual, psychological, professional, paranormal--that she previously thought uncrossable...The ardeur that compels her to have sex in order to fuel her two "power triumvirates" must now be fed with increasing frequency…Hamilton's imagination is apparently as inexhaustible as her heroine's supernatural capacity for coupling.” Publisher’s Weekly

It's such a great book guys. Like Anita has transcended from a good girl with a naughty attitude to a magical porn star! It’s really deep, cuz if you think about it, ardeur is like the Trinity and the “power triumvirates” are like the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is like--Anita's you know where. OMG I LOVE religious allegory!

Uh-oh, I gotta go cuz my dad just got home! And he brought KFC, OMG I love crispy chicken wings!

So remember guys, authors write stories to entertain us—not to be like, good or anything.

Faeluver Please Read and Review !!!1111!!!!