About The W.A.R. Blog and Why We Do This

Like the mentally conflicted origins of superheroes in the comics, our origin also began as the result of a long and drawn out bloody trauma initiated by anonymous fantasy writers resident on the tacky forum board known as Absolute Write. It began one day quite suddenly. A friend's email alerted us. "Have you googled your name or your business lately?" We did so and there, fourth place in the search results, was a link to Absolute Write and a little comment below the link: "Bewares, Background Check, and Recommendations." My wife and I did a big HUH??? Bewares? Background check? Who was background checking us and what right or qualifications did they have? And how did this link jump so high on google? What bothered us from the start was that their wording presented us as something potentially ominous. After all, the word wasn't "review" it was "beware." Why did anyone have to "beware" of us?

We clicked on the link and there it was: nearly two pages of incredibly negative and misinformed snarky comments by at least seven different Absolute Write members, all of whom appeared as anonymous creatures, stones, cats, and whiffs of vapor, and all with signatures promoting their self-published or e-published fantasy books, the kind of books with the stock covers and predictable hack titles, and all of their venom fomented at the top of the first page by a ridiculous floating fairy thing that called itself "Hapisofi." Apparently this Hapisofi thing ruled the forum, for the other posting creatures were engaged in agreeing with everything she said and trying to outdo each other with acts of sycophancy.

The Hapisofi Thing

To our horror, the Hapisofi fairy leveled a diatribe at us and our business. She used every means at her disposal to make us look like fools and frauds. She commented in such a manner as to create a totally false picture of who we are and what we do. She seized on select bits of information, left others out, issued forth with three outright lies, insulted us personally in the nastiest way imaginable, and spun her own fantasy world wherein we were the villains and she was the hero. She crowed and lied while being cheered on by her Absolute Write elves and booger trolls. Other mods joined in after page two, including side commentary in the nature of "they deserve it" from Medievalist (Lisa Spangenberg) and someone named Macallister Stone (Melodi Sherman), and on from there.

My wife and I made the enormous mistake of believing we could straighten things out by going on the forum and telling the truth. When I say enormous mistake, I am not even close. The things and floating fairy Hapsofi surrounded me like a pack of starving dingos running down their dinner. No matter what facts we pointed out, or links or references, it was all shot down in the most arbitrary and hostile manner. The snarking stones and cats and vapors began competing with each other to deliver the most biting comments while the Hapisofi dodged in and out with cheers for the others. It was exactly like those highschool bully forums you read about all the time. Could these things actually be fully functioning adults? What was their problem? Why did they relish such an unfair scalding of people they had never met? Didn't even one of them stop to see and realize how unfair it all was?

We knew all was lost when a statement made by Macallister Stone, the owner of Absolute Write, bascially declared us guilty by virtue of our resistance. We were termed sockpuppets, and worse. We were then banned from the forum while Stone, Hapisofi, Medievalist, and others swung their big machetes for another page or two. The creatures surrounding them said, "Good job!" and "Thank you for warning us, Hapisofi!"

In the aftermath of that horror, we sought legal counsel. We were not in the States at that time, but managed to talk to a few attorneys via email. They agreed that these anonymous things had commited acts of per se defamation against our business, but first we had to find out who they were, and to do that we had to track down the real owners first. There was also an issue of our possible "public figure" status which allowed these Absolute Write people to practically get away with murder, as the saying goes.

As time went on, we did lots of research on these Absolute Write things, and discovered that we were not alone in our desperation. It seemed like hundreds of others were posting their terrible experiences with Macallister Stone and her cadre of attack dogs. One website refers to them as "the infernal snake pit of Absolute Write." We could not agree more.

We've also learned that the intent behind Absolute Write was a good one, but after Macallister Stone's government took over, the dark clouds moved in. She feeds a world of negativity and hostility that few people can imagine possible unless they've been through it like we have.

After bonding with a number of other anti-Absolute Write forces, we are working to create a joint task force of people who have one goal: to pull the fangs out of Absolute Write by any legal means necessary and to reveal the ongoing fraud they perpetrate by claiming to be a source of good information for writers. On the upper level for Melodi Sherman, the owner, it's about selling click-through banner and google advertisements, and in the forum trenches, it's about e-published writers trying to sell their books by getting visibility in conflict threads, or about amateur writers kissing up to the others in hopes of gain. In other words, there is no reason to be fair or good. If Absolute Write were run by good people, they would have contacted us and requested an online interview and discussion in their forum, allowed us to present our side and take questions while moderating in a way that respects everyone.

Join us. Help us. Enough is enough. We want justice for ourselves and everyone else. Even if you believe we're full of it, that's fine. Do the research, learn the truth. It's all out there.

Thank you.

The W.A.R. Blokes