Greek Siren

I was trying hard not to comment on this because in a way, it's exactly up my street. It concerns perceptions of what a 'writer' is nowadays, as well as what constitutes an 'author'. Certainly under any normal criteria Jacqueline Howett would not be considered an author. Clearly struggling to write in the English language her tragi-comic attempts at poetry and novel-writing are so awful they defy satirising. Her self-penned blurb for her latest novel should tell you everything you need to know:

"What is an eighteen year old newly wed doing traveling on a massive merchant ship anyways? Hadn’t she gone to Greece on tour in a ballet as a dancer? These are questions Katy asks herself while traveling the high seas with Don, her chief officer. However, little do they know, a smuggling ring is also on board for this ride, on a blue diamond exchange. When explosions and threats to sink the ship also happen, they must try to save themselves."

No, what's really interesting is how a mildly critical review (I would say too uncritical, frankly) on an obscure blog has attracted scores of other self-published 'authors' to add interminable hooting dissent to Ms Howett's original - and clearly hysterical - comments. They are all too quick to condemn Howett's increasingly disjointed responses whilst at the same time clearly enjoying the company of fellow 'authors'. It was as if they had arrived at the scene of this literary accident and had been pleasantly surprised to see all their peers there, so then stood around nodding and agreeing with each other as the wreckage still smouldered.

But the truth is stranger. Hardly any of the commentators joining in the melee are true published authors themselves, and a fair amount of their vitriol seems aimed at Howett showing them up as the amateurs they so obviously are. Grammar and spelling went out of the window in this parade of people who felt they had at last found someone so bad they could safely sneer from the sidelines, knowing that however unsuccessful and unrecognized they were, here at last was someone who was worse off. And in case Howett didn't realise this they spelt it out for her in no uncertain terms: the fact she would be 'blacklisted' by publishers world-wide, and would be forced to write under a pen-name from now on. One went so far as to say Howett had damaged the reputation of 'self-publishers' everywhere.

But of course, ironically, the more they did this, the more they tweeted about Howett, the more of these self-appointed literary critics and self-published authors came out of the woodwork. Big Al's page became a magnet for the unsung tens of thousands of people who think they can write or who think that their opinion on literary matters matters.

And it didn't rest there. If you google 'Jacqueline Howett' now you will discover that numerous lit-bloggers have blogged about her. This is because it helps reinforce the illusion that these lit-blogs actually matter in the real literary world. Ironically you will also discover that if you google 'Jacqueline Howlett', 'Jaqueline Howett' or variations thereof more and different lit-blogs will appear - the ones written by people who have not checked the spelling of her name.

So in a way Howett has done everyone who inhabits the mediocre world of self-published 'authors' a favour. She has become the watermark against which they can measure themselves. It's only that the level is so extraordinarily low that pretty much everyone else in that world can now feel they are extremely talented.