NOTICE: Postings in this journal are intended for adults as they may contain adult situations and language.

I am a member of the HWA. That doesn’t say a whole lot except I am serious about the genre and the love of it.

When I first joined, I was mesmerized by the message boards and all they had to offer. Each day, I searched and read words of wisdom from the authors I admired and the authors who had “made it.”

Recently, that joy has been sucked out of my life, one posting at a time. Do you know what a “message board troll know-it-all” is? Allow me to define it for you.

MESSAGE BOARD TROLL KNOW-IT-ALL: Someone who spends their every waking moment sitting at their computer, trolling the message boards for ways to cause trouble and make others feel inferior.

We have our very own troll at HWA. He disguises his postings as helpful information to those who seek answers, at the expense of all the others. He slings insults to those who dare to have an opinion contrary to his and NEVER GIVES UP. Each time a post is made, he will respond. Even when others concede that they have had enough and will no longer engage is the tit-for-tat confrontational behavior of his; he simply must have the last word.

The sad part of all of this is that if one could scrape off the pond scum of his postings, one might actually find some useful information. But that will never happen because as soon as you begin to think you could actually respect his opinion and knowledge, the insults begin and the “holier-than-thou” attitude comes shining on through. At this point, his postings begin to blur and the nausea sets in.

I can’t decide whether to let my membership run out and skip the renewing. But if I did, I would miss the wonderful postings by TRUE professionals who have been published many times over and would never sink to the level of the troll by slinging insults. To those TRUE professionals (Douglas Clegg is the first one to come to mind) I THANK YOU. To Doug and Mort Castle and the others, your class act is one I shall follow.