Not a good agent Royal Gillette - Con Artist!

One of my e-mail groups spoke about agents. I had to say something about my own personal experience with one and why I'm now going to the self-publishing side of things. This will be a long story to tell.

It was 1996, I read the ads in Writer's Digest and found a literary agency called Sunrise Literary Group searching for unpublished writers. They wanted three chapters, I sent in three chapters of my The Storyteller's Tale. I got word from them about a week and half later, they couldn't take me on but their friend and associate Royal Gillette read over the chapters and he was interested in becoming my agent, here's his info.
So I called him up and spoke with him with my father by my side. He loved the story and said that I had a real good chance of getting it published. We agreed and he said (this should have been our red flag) he needed $1,500 to become my agent. I'm like I need to see some authors books that you have gotten published. He rattled off some names - fake names of book titles and authors.
We went to our local bookstore and asked for the book titles and authors to find no one by that name or book titles in their book shelf on their computers. We called him up and told him what we found. He came up with the smaller stores wouldn't have them yet as they're in the big stores. We believed that and we sent the money, not once did we use our search engines for him and the books he had said.
A few days, I got the contract and signed it, sent it back to him. He did tell me that he sent my manuscript off to Del Ray by Fed Ex, but when I called them and asked if an agent by the name of Royal Gillette sent anything to them by Fed Ex, the lady on the phone said no, never heard of him before. I thanked her and told my dad what she said. My dad told me to call Royal. I did but got only his answering machine. I left a message stating I need to talk to you urgently about my book. He didn't call me back for at least three days. I told him that I had called Del Ray to make sure that the manuscript got to them, they said that they never got anything from you. You said that they were interested. He came back with well, the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing there. They have the manuscript and we're in contact about it. Just hang tight, Beth. I'll call you when we get the news.
After that, I never got anything from him about any rejections or acceptances till January of the following year, stating that he was moving closer to New York City to get closer to the big publishers and if your contracts expire during the move, when we are settled in our new building, we will renew them.
I never got anything back, so I put his name into the search engine and found several people who had him as an agent and every single one of them got asked money first and then the contract and then they heard nothing from him and they found out that he was a con artist. I was devastated by this information. I sent him a letter demanding an explanation of the claims from these other clients of his claiming that he just ripped them off of their money and their time in searching for an agent who was not a con. My letter was returned unknown recipient. I sent another letter to the company I got him from, same thing happened.
I had spent a year not searching for an agent because I thought I had one, when all I had was a con artist.
The first red flag on this was that he asked for money upfront - no agents get money up front, they get their money from the royalties that come from your book being sold and published.
The second red flag was that the authors and the books they wrote never existed at all - when your bookstore says there is no one by that name or the book, you need to get to your computer and put them into your search engines. I didn't find anything on the authors or the books Royal had told me that he got published.
I got conned as did my father who believed his cons. I lost $1,500 to this person and a year of searching for an agent.
The moral of this is when they ask for money upfront and the authors and books that they say do not come up in any searches, run as far as you can, they are not legit agents.

Where oh where are the beta readers gone?

Over the past decade, I have had a lot of beta readers. Almost all of them have dumped me after doing about three to four chapters of my stories. I had really good ones that I liked, just up and vanish on me without a word to those who I also liked would lie to my face stating that real life is being hard for them at the moment and that they need to pull back and focus on that for a while (which I found for the most part to be nothing but lies).

I accept that and then later, on the same writing message group on Yahoo, I get a message from my now departed beta reader asking for new work, when he or she had real life issues pop up and suddenly, they're asking for new work. I go in and state that so and so beta reader will drop you three chapters into the work, with the claim of real life problems popped up and they can't finish editing my work. They end up getting questions posted on the group why did they drop an editing job when it was not finished. The person never answered the questions and quickly removed themselves from the group itself.

I never took on another beta reader after that, which was back in 2006. I never took a beta reader to work on my stories because they tend to dump me soon after getting to the third chapter and have to create lies to get out of working on my stories. I really love getting my stories edited to where I can get them ready for publication.

I do have one beta reader that I really like a lot and I cannot wait till she gets to the next chapters of my story as I am doing at least three edits and rewrites of each chapter before I move onto the next chapter. I hope this one doesn't leave me as I really like her a lot.

Don't you even bloody listen! Rant time!

Thirteen hours ago, I posted a status message on my Facebook account this message:

My ‪#‎writing‬ goal for this weekend is to get one chapter done on both ‪#‎Warrior_Princess‬ and ‪#‎AttackofToadegaBay‬ stories. Can I do it? Maybe.

Well, five of my friends, doesn't 'see' it that way. Since 10:04am this morning, they have been calling me and now they text message me just a moment ago stating 'I need you', 'I really need you' and other text messages.

I'm trying my hardest to get two chapters on both of my stories done, but when you ignore the fact that I am trying to write all weekend long, calling me or texting me saying I need you is a form of harassment and a sign of you being co-dependent and the thing is I am a loner by nature. I hate being bothered when I clearly stated that I want to be alone! And seriously, at this time I want to be left ALONE!, so I could write my two chapters to two of my stories! I wouldn't have minded if I had said I had done it, I got two chapters on both of my writing projects done this weekend. But I made no comment on my Facebook account as of yet, really I shouldn't even be writing this rant blog right now but seriously, the constant fucking calls is pissing me off to where I have put my phone on vibrate and placed it where I cannot see it nor hear it vibrating when a call goes off, so I can write in peace.

Seriously, people! When someone says on their Facebook account I will be doing this (writing, painting or something that they want to be able to do by themselves) all weekend, don't assume that on Saturday morning that you can bother them about things, they are busy the entire weekend, unless they say I did it! I got whatever I was doing this weekend finished today! You do not call or text them and demand that they listen to you whine about something or that they want to come over and spend time with you to which you have to go get dressed, go drive to their location, pick them up and bring them to your home only to repeat those steps minus the getting dressed part at the end of the day.

So, I have no problem in ignoring the phone calls or the text messages right now as I am doing something other than paying attention to some needy person at the moment - it is called writing and I am hoping to get my original stories finished to where I can send them to my beta reader and get them ready to be published by next year.

Am I wrong to be so cold to them or am I doing the right thing since they clearly do not realize that I do not want to be bothered at this moment?

Long time in posting anything here.

Seriously, I totally forgot about this place.

Well, several things have happened since I had posted.

In April 8th, I started a new job. It doesn't pay much but it is a stepping stone of sorts for me to get into a better paying job.
On September 5th, I got Employee of The Month and the thing was I was totally not expecting to get such an honor from them so soon after joining their employment.
In September, my 2002 Toyota Rav4 that I had named CJ, started her death spiral and by the 18th of September, she was dying and towed to the Toyota dealership in Columbia who I had hoped would fix her completely and get her back to me. But the transmission had died on her and it would have cost me over four thousand dollars to fix her up fully. But the thing is, she cost about five thousand dollars. So my dad put in a call to the dealership to see about trading her in for a newer but used Toyota Rav4. Guess what happened? NOTHING! They never called my dad to work with us in getting me a used but new Rav4 which would be in my name and my payments that I would be paying. They didn't seem to want to work with us, at all, so I had to, very sadly, give that dealership my three finger salute and look elsewhere for a vehicle.
The good thing that came out of this was the other dealership that had originally did the deal, which I think was why the other dealership really didn't want to work with my dad because it was not their deal originally. Joe Machens Toyota in Columbia, Missouri got the three fingered salute from both my dad and me for being very cold to a possible buyer of their vehicles and guess what? In my family, we are very loyal to the dealership that we deal with in getting vehicles. Well, on September 25, 2013, I became the owner of a 2002 Black ML320 Mercedes Benz, with car payments. Yes, I now own a Mercedes Benz in my name, not my father's or my mother's name but my name. Guess what will happen in 2017, when I pay the last payment to my CJ, I will trade it in for a newer vehicle. Not a Rav4, but another Mercedes Benz, as much as I love the Rav4s', Toyota's treatment of my dad and me basically soured my taste to the Rav4s'. I have become a Mercedes Benz girl now, instead of a Toyota girl.
I named her CJ, like my first vehicle, but that was under my dad's name, this vehicle is mine in name and everything else.
During a visit to my uncle in late October, we spoke about family and Herb made mention that his own son had defriended him on Facebook. His son had defriended his own father from his Facebook account. I went to my Facebook account to see if my cousin was still my friend, only to find out that he had done the same bloody thing to me! He deleted us both as friends and a mutual friend of ours was deleted as friends. I think I know why he removed us. It was because he got a new role in the high school football team - runningback coach or because he finally got his face slapped by the facts that his own father for the last several years had finally been vindicated as Henry needed supports on his feet to help him play better. Henry finally got the support and BANG, his game improved twenty-fold to where he's an awesome football player. You would think that would prompt his son to get in contact with his dad and invite him over to the house to apologize for second guessing him. But he did a stupid thing instead, he removed members of his own blood family from his Facebook page in lue of his in-laws. Well, lets just leave it at that as he missed out on a lot of things in the Brownell side of the family. He did come to the memorial for his grandfather but that was before he decided to cut ties to the Brownell clan who were on Facebook. Oh well, that's his loss. If he wants to be friends with us again, we will hold no hard feelings as blood is thicker than water to us but if he doesn't want to be friends with his blood kin, it is no skin off our noses, he made his bed and now he must sleep in it.
I've decided to remove chapters of my original stories from the internet, as I have decided to work on getting them published either by self publishing or going the traditional route through agents and publishers. I might try to get them finished during my winter vacation from work as I usually spend my evenings working on them, if I work on them during the daytime and the evenings, I might be able to get them done to where I can send them to a beta-reader to work on editing them before I start writing the one to two page synopsis of my latest work called Warrior Princess. I also have been doing chapter readings at a local coffee cafe in Lebanon, Missouri called Simplicity Coffee, Tea, and More each Friday evening, unless there is really bad weather to where they cancel it and it is usually held around 6pm or 6:30pm as I allow a small group of singers called Walenia to play before I read a chapter of my story Warrior Princess, then I sit down and do some writing on my story if the muse decided to start singing while I am there.
I also might have asthma as this past December 10th, I went to the ER with breathing problems and I mean I was gasping for air and my chest hurt from breathing. It turned out to be bronicospasms. In other words, the tubes leading to my lungs were spasming so hard it made it hard for me to even really speak.
Well, this is a very long post, something that I hope is not going to be a regular thing. I need to head for bed since tomorrow morning is the one of two days of work for me since I start my winter vacation on December 18th to December 30th.
I will do another post soon.
Possible topics - winter driving tips or what my driving rules are.
I might do them both since both are important.

I am sorry that I didn't come back here.

An update on my mom's cancer battle:

Sadly it is not good news, on May 12, 2012, my mom Janet lost her battle with tongue cancer at 5:35pm. She was 68 years old. She was admitted into Osage Beach Regional Hospital on May 8th, after suffering a severe reaction to her pain medication. Mom was always sensitive to pain medication especially morphine.

My mother went into a coma on May 8th and she remained in one for about a day when she came out of it and she with slurred speech tried to get out of her hospital bed and head to the bathroom on her own power, which she hasn't done in over a week before. She wanted to go home and she demanded to go home. We had to give her more pain meds to knock her back out. We were not equipt to handle mom in her present condition and the hospital was. Craig stayed overnight till that Saturday late afternoon when mom opened her eyes for the last time and mouthed something to us and left this world for God's gardens where she's free from her cancer that killed her and she's very much healthy once again and with her son David and her mom Flippy.

== And now for my rant. ==

During the month of April and part of the first week of May, a now former friend of mine Kathleen Todd had told me that two people were spreading lies about my mom not dying of cancer or that she was even dead on deviantart where she and these two ladies were at. Kathleen Todd flat out lied to me, on who was spreading rumors about my mom's cancer not being real and when I finally spoke with the two people who were supposedly spreading rumors about my mother's cancer. I learned something that made me very angry, not at the two people who were supposedly spreading rumors, but with the girl who TOLD ME that they were spreading lies - Kathleen Todd herself!

Kathleen Todd is nothing more than a bloody, lying, little spoiled girl who thought telling me lies would keep me by her side when in fact it didn't! It drove me away! She who I had called sister, had actually flat out lied to me about it! She told me someone told her that Bonita Prime and Leathurkatt were spreading lies. But when I spoke to both women, they both flat out denied it as it is something that they would not do. This little lying girl claimed that they were spreading lies about my mom's condition and that I was lying about it to get sympathy!

This girl is a known liar in the MDTAS fandom, she actually pulled I'm going blind to get attention back to her when everyone was talking more with another member on the Cool as Ice Message Board, she didn't like that so she created a lie claiming that she's going blind in one eye. But a few days later, she never mentioned it again and basically was bragging about some high priced items that she got instead or that she's getting a foal from a very expensive bloodline of Arabian horses for free - a Crabbet Arabian.

She claimed when it came time to have the new foal in her possession that the foal was chased into barb wire and they had to put it down AND YET, ALL OF THE PHOTOS SEEN WITH THIS FOAL SHE CLAIMED WAS HERS WAS SEEN IN WHITE BANDED ELECTRIC WIRE FENCING, not one sign of barb wire anywhere! So we all knew that was a lie as there was no barb wire fencing seen in any of the photos we seen. You would also think that she would post about what the colt's owner is going to do as in giving her a replacement foal but she never did say anything about it.

She has lied constantly and everyone who is a friend of mine basically no longer believe a word she says as they have asked her for proof of her claims that Bonita Prime tried to claim her website Autobot Headquarters or that she claimed that the autobot repaints were hers and not Kathleen Todd's or the angry e-mails coming from parents claiming that she stole autobot headquarters from the original owner, which proved to be nothing more than lies.

Kathleen Todd is nothing more than a liar and not to be believed.

Driving time.

I have about 31 days worth of driving under my belt but I am not a licensed driver yet. The reason why you ask. I will tell you why.

My dad allowed my older brother to take the white car out to Phoenix, AZ for a month and ten days. Craig said that he would be back in September. In time for me to make my September 20th driving test.

My dad basically let him take the white car when he could have bussed there which would have been cheaper and it would mean that we would have the white car here at the house for me to continue with my exercising and driving lessons with mom.

Now it is December and still no white car in the first bay of the garage. I have looked for cheap cars for my dad to purchase for mom and I to drive but he flat out refuses to go out and buy a cheap used car for mom and I to drive and let alone even make the attempt to find one.

My brother told us that he might not come back at all. To which makes my parents very happy and yet pisses me bloody off. I'm neglected and yet yelled at because I'm asking for a vehicle to drive instead of waiting for mom to get off her butt to go into town since it is now dad who buys everything at the store.

I cannot buy a car till I get myself a drivers license, not one that is a permit license. So I have to suffer playing the waiting game for mom to get off her butt to go into town so I can have some driving time and when dad goes into town and it is not to the office, I get a chance to drive into town but that's rare to say the least.

I have asked and begged for a car that mom and I can drive, so I would have time driving and going to the gym to start off my exercising again so I can start losing weight that I have gained since my older brother took the white car.

My parents, I wish they would just understand me and my desire to get my license finalized and get myself a car so I can get a job and start living my own life. But nooooo, their interest is to keep my older brother out of the house. If it was me, they would make it extremely hard for me to do so. I wish they would get another car and let me start getting serious about driving and having time behind the wheel.