Nicky and Nanowrimo

I'm currently at my weekly Nanorimo write-in and wanted to let Nicky know (and I know you read this, Nicky) that I just wrote him into my novel. I realized that I needed a stupid motel clerk to facilitate some drama, and since I had already depicted the clerk as not-stupid, I gave her an unkempt beer-swilling cigarette-smoking foul-mouthed grandson who lived in the hotel basement and covered for her when she had to run out. Grandson Nickolaus is currently doing an excellent job of making my characters look smart and himself look like an idiot.

Nicky's Latest Sees the Light of Day

It' s no secret by now that Autoaim obtained "Shitstorm", Nicky's attempt at writing directly from Nicky himself and posted it on his blog. Autoaim's site is currently shut down. I believe that he is dealing with a DMCA notice from Nicky -- although I'm surprised Nicky could even figure out how to file one given his lack of reading comprehension and writing skill.

"Shitstorm" is a pile of crap like Nicky's other writings, better than some, worse than others. The villain is a fan fiction writer named Karen Morgan (ooh, tough to figure out who he's after here) who did things with characters that the original authors didn't like. Sounds about par for most of the fan fiction I've read, so what's the big deal?

In Nicky's story, writing fan fiction is sin against God, awakens damnation (however, the hell one does that) and ruins the original authors because it steals away readers. Uh...yeah. I think this story emphasizes one aspect of Nicky's character that has become apparent to me over the years: Nicky takes mere words far too seriously. For example:

• He freaks at the idea of someone burning a manuscript (see "F&*^beater" and "Shitstorm", as well as a myriad of blog posts). These days, though, a manuscript is just a printout from a computer. Who cares if one burns? Just print out another.

• He thinks lobbing any kind of insult at someone will automatically "piss them off". That's how Nicky reacts, of course, but most of the rest of (adult) humanity has a better sense of self-worth than that. I'm not saying that verbal insults can never be injurious. Far from it. Most of us, however, consider the source, and if the opinion of the person issuing the insult doesn't matter to use, we can let it go.

• He freaks when someone uses one of his characters for sport and has to tell everyone that that is NOT what his character would do. Any person reading Nicky spoofs probably already knows enough about Nicky to know that he or she is reading a spoof.

Nicky also finally got around to mentioning me in a story. He writes, "...it was just as unforgivable as that the deeds of what Ms. Wagner had done. The one who went and swiped every title in an unnamed anthology then plagiarized the stories, word for word. " Ms. Wagner would be me, but I'm not sure if Nicky has figured that out. He hasn't referred to me as "horrorgal" once since I posted Tabloid Purposes: A Road Trip, only as Jennifer Wagner. If he'd read the copyright page, he would see that I listed my e-mail address and it's the same one he's used to e-mail me before.

And for the record, I didn't plagiarize the stories. I've never read the stories, just their titles.

Nicky Hasn't Completely Forgotten About Me

Nicky has another two articles...er...rants...er...crap up on Associated Content. I won't link to them because he doesn't deserve the publicity. You can go here and read the whole text. However, he once again demonstrates that he has his head up his ass. He says,

"There is another out there who went and stole the title TABLOID PURPOSES
and plagiarized every story in the book. Stealing a character I created in
SPECTRAL EXILE as part of their act of trying to break me."

First, you can't copyright a title. And since the title of my book is more relevant to its contents than Nicky's is, I think I'll keep it.

Second, I didn't plagiarize any of the stories. I wrote silly anecdotes and gave them titles similar to the titles in Nicky's self-published unedited anthology. If Nicky had actually read the stories (and knew the meaning of "plagiarism"), he would realize that.

Third, I created a character called Nicholas Kane, but he's not Nicky's character. My Nicholas is a gay, white EMT lving in Yuma. Nicky's Nicholas is a Gary-Stu-esque writer living somewhere in the Midwest.

Nicky fails again.

And, Nicky, I'm up to 211 downloads. How many copies of your TP V are out there?

Nicky Lies Again

Nicky finally found "Tabloid Purposes: A Road Trip". He writes on his blog:

Also looks like the Cunt named Jennifer Wagner decided to steal TABLOID PURPOSES and make parody stories of each anthology entry and stealing my story SPECTRAL EXILE – word for word plagiarisms of the story.

Nicky likes to throw "plagiarism" around, even though no sane person would want to claim Nicky's writing as her own. I'd rather claim my dog's writing. Since I haven't received any rambling and incoherent death threats, I can only assume that Nicky has not actually read "Tabloid Purposes: A Road Trip". He's just figured out the jist of the e-book from comments on my blog and on the blogs of others (dial-up sucks, doesn't it, Nicky; can't even download a little 500K file). And that has resulted in two errors in his post:

• Nowhere in the "Tabloid Purposes: A Road Trip" is there any story even like "Spectral Exile", much less any word-for-word copying.



• The stories I wrote are not parodies of the stories in the anthology, which I haven't bought and don't intend to.

As of this writing, "Tabloid Purposes: A Road Trip" has been downloaded 169 times. Thank you to everyone who was interested enough to check it out. (ETA: Up to 180 now)

I can't wait until "Tabloid Purposes 6" comes out.

The Seeds of Inspiration

In my latest parody, I've used some characters with names similar to those in Nicky's stories. For those who haven't slogged through Nicky's coma-inducing prose:

The Dog Seeker - My character is Seth Stiles. Nicky wrote about a Seth Miles in "Passenger".

Ninos - My characters are Nicholas Kane and Otis Young, gay EMT's living in Yuma, Arizona. This is the only story where my characters have exactly the same name as two of Nicky's: Nicholas Kane from "Spectral Exile" and Otis Young from "Halloween on Camera". Nicky's characters, however, are white, heterosexual writers -- so clearly they are different characters from mine.

The Trouble with Georgie - My character is Georgina Davis. Nicky wrote about a Georgina Davidson in "Storms of Armageddon".

News of Seared - My character is Alan Lisaak. Nicky wrote about an Allan Isaac in "Leviathan's Ghost".

An Iron Son - My character is Katrina Tyler. Nicky wrote about a Catrina Taylor in "House of Spiders".

Home to a Chicken - My character is Dick Dorland. Nicky wrote about a Richard Borland in "Lake Fossil".

Death by Piratical Malfunction - My character is Albert Coe. Nicky wrote about an Albert Joseph Poe in "The Fandom Writer".

XT-211 - My character is Howard Prill. Nicky wrote about a Herald Prell in "Flying Cigars".

Wish I Weren't in Dixie - My character is Helen Cott. Nicky wrote about a Hellen Ott in "The Ferryman's Wheelchair".

Cyber:Terror:Dwarf - My character is Pickie Picoine. Nicky wrote about...oh wait...

The Hell Outside - My characters are Tim and Lauren Sterling and Bert Drexler. Nicky wrote about Tim and Laura Serling and Albert Drexler in "The Statue".

Killer Air - My character is Lenny Norwood. Nicky wrote about a Kenneth Norwood in "Norwood's Discovery".

The Last Act of Albert Deeds - My character is Albert Deeds. Nicky wrote about a Thomas Joseph Deeds in "Fuckbeater."

Practically Rancid - My character is Lane Nelson. Nicky wrote about a Layne Nielson in "Bleed the Freak".

-----------------------------------

I also owe a credit to someone -- I don't remember who -- on the Something Awful forums for the image of Nicky standing on a sidewalk yelling at a lawn sprinkler. Thank you.

Tabloid Purposes -- My Version

I’ve been sick with bronchitis the last few days and stuck in bed, bored silly. I'm gearing up for NaNoWriMo next month, so to get into the "writing a lot every day" habit, I decided to play around with Nicky's latest publication, TP V.

As we all know, a title cannot be copyrighted nor can the names of characters. I've also checked, and "Tabloid Purposes" is not trademarked (if Nicky can't afford to pay his authors, he certainly can't afford to pay the U.S. Trademark and Patent offce). So I am free to use the title "Tabloid Purposes" if I wish. And I did. Check it out here

If you look at the TP V table of contents (here: http://www.lulu.com/content/4262719), you might notice some similarity to mine. The titles of my (fictional) anecdotes are plays on the titles of the stories in his anthology.

Now, be advised, I wrote this book very quickly and while dosed up on cough syrup with codiene. It's a bit uneven, and some anecdotes are only so-so, written because I needed something to include for that "story". For sheer lulz, though, I think that "Cyber:Terror:Dwarf", "XT-211" and "Death by Piratical Malfunction" are the best.

I may revisit this after NaNoWriMo, when my brain will desperately need to focus on something besides a romantic suspense novel.

For the search engines: Nickolaus A. Pacione

Horrorgal Goes Into the File Recovery Business

Nicky's latest post on Blogger says in part, "Jaen you're way out of line with this one, and since you pissed on a dead authors grave with your act that is personal. I didn't even have a chance to get the files to fix the mistake of publishing you."

Since I am a kind and generous person, I e-mailed Nicky today with an offer to help him out:

"Nicky,

I see on your latest Blogspot entry that you "...didn't even have a chance to get the files to fix the mistake of publishing you." I assume "you" is Jane.

I happen to have PDF copies of all four TP's, bought straight from Lulu. I'd be happy to e-mail you a copy...for a price. How about $100 per issue. What do you say? It would have to be cash, though. No screwing around with Paypal.

Jenny"

Nicky responded within about 90 minutes:

"Fuck you bitch. Just give me the master copy of Tabloid Purposes II."

and

"You're stealing my money for a project I worked hard to create. You're a bitch."

(bonus points to Nicky for using the correct form of "you're") and

"You're willing to steal my book and my money -- I would rather off you."

That last is rather close to a death threat, but...Nicky isn't really capable of hurting me. I -emailed him back:

"Nicky,

I didn't steal anything. I bought that little CD-ROM you put together and posted for sale on Lulu. It's not my fault that you didn't back-up your files. Here's a tip for the future: flash drives are inexpensive and reliable methods of backing up files. So is burning a CD.

Most places that retrieve non-backed-up data from failed hard drives can charge a couple grand or more (depending upon what caused the hard drvie to fail.) I'd say $100 per file is a bargain.

Jenny"

Nicky back to me a bit later:

"Just give me Tabloid Purposes II but you're not going to con me out of my money. Give me what I want and I will go away without a dime to your name bitch. I am not giving you a red cent for my hard earned work as an editor."

And my response:

"I'm not trying to con you. I offered you a fair deal. $100 for my time in finding TP II on my portable file storage device, loading it onto my computer and e-mailing it to you. Once again, it's your own fault for not backing up your own files. If you don't like the deal, fine."

Nicky again:

"I don't deal with industry terrorists. You'll use that money to eat your breakfast on a mirror that's racketeering lady."

I'll keep updating this post as I receive more delusions and accusations.