Humans & Behaviour Archives ⋆ L.J. Diva

A.J. Finn issues an apology to The New Yorker

22/02/2019 by L.J. Diva Filed Under: Authors & Books, Business & Legalities, Humans & Behaviour Leave a Comment

Last week I discussed author A.J. Finn’s notoriously bad behaviour in publishing circles and how far it had gotten him.

This week, he issued an apology to The New Yorker magazine via a PR firm.

Yep, he used a PR firm!

The story in The New Yorker is doing the rounds. Multiple websites have stories, read here, read here, read here, he even made it into a Reddit discussion. And I’m sure many more people and blogged, and done news stories on it because it was a fascinating piece to read.

However…

The narcissism is still riding high. He’s blaming everything on the stress of having bipolar, his mother actually having cancer at one stage, and the stress of his life.

I’m calling bullshit on all of that too.

What happens to you in your childhood, may affect your adulthood, but as an adult YOU choose how to behave and live.

Nothing else.

He CHOSE to lie and manipulate everything for his own benefit, and I still hope his little house of cards comes a tumblin’ down.

The meteoric rise of A.J. Finn, and the fall that’s bound to come with it.

15/02/2019 by L.J. Diva Filed Under: Authors & Books, Business & Legalities, Humans & Behaviour, Publishing Leave a Comment

Last year, on Aussie tv, I saw an interview with author A.J. Finn. I didn’t know who he/she was, had never heard of, or seen he/she before, so had no idea whether he/she was a man or woman.

Turns out, he was a man.

The book he was flogging, The Woman in the Window, seemed interesting, and I borrowed it from my local library.

I didn’t give it a flattering review, but you can read it here…

I found him to be very hyper, always talking, moving frenetically. I wondered if he was on drugs. He mentioned his mother was with him on the tour and in the audience. He mentioned he had bipolar. I thought, huh, okay, maybe that’s why he’s so hyper.

Little did I know…

This week The New Yorker magazine has come out with a blasting expose on A.J. Finn, also known as Dan Mallory and you can read it here…

It goes in depth into his life, his past, his family. Interviews have been conducted, people have been spoken too, and the lies that came out about his life and career are more than telling. It really makes you wonder how liars get away with so much.

From his lies about the death of his mother, the suicide of his brother (both are supposedly still alive), to claiming he had cancer, to social climbing his way through publishing houses and claiming to have discovered authors, to lying about another publishing house wanting him to gain a raise with the house he was already with.

When his book, The Woman in the Window was being auctioned, it created a publishing frenzy. And then those houses found out who the author was and dropped out of the running. William Morrow, who employed Mallory at the time, scored the book and a second in a deal that one New Yorker joked, “The call was coming from inside the house!” Of course they wanted to keep him in house, they would have known he was trouble.

Fox 2000 bought the rights to the movie which is coming out this year. It was reported he’d earned about two million out of it and no longer had to work. But as we all know, if you don’t work and blow through the money you have, you eventually end up with none. So, I wonder what he’s coming up with next?

The Stylist website have also done a story on him, but in a rather weird twist, made the article all about female authors and how publishing houses treat them, with the damning title of – “This exposé of a crime writer is a damning indictment of the way publishing treats women”.

Seriously!?

The story is not about female authors, it’s about a highly narcissistic male and the lies he told to get where and what he wanted. It ISN’T about female authors, but there will always be one who has to turn everything around to be about them. They sampled twitter replies about the article and Dan Mallory, and all of them turned the story around to be about female authors.

AGAIN, NOT ABOUT FEMALE AUTHORS!

I get really sick and tired of seeing women constantly make everything about them, and yes, I am a woman. For once in your freakin’ lives, read, see, hear what the actual story is about, and not what you WANT IT to be about. IT IS NOT ABOUT YOU AND FEMALE AUTHORS!

It’s about a man who has lied his way through life and used everybody and everything to get what he wanted, and the people who allowed it to happen and turned a blind eye to his revoltingly nasty ways.

I certainly won’t be watching the movie. To quote myself from my book review, “I know this is being made into a movie with Amy Adams, but I have no need to watch it since I’ve read it, and don’t want to see the stupidity of this character on the screen”.

I really hope that Dan Mallory falls from his pedestal, or burns his wings on the sun, because egotistical narcissists like him just don’t need to have their egos stroked.

Why I Hate Being A Woman!

22/02/2018 by L.J. Diva Filed Under: Humans & Behaviour Leave a Comment

You don’t really think about it when you’re young. You know you’re different to boys, you have things they don’t have and vice versa. You find out in your teens that you bleed from between your legs, right where that coarse curly hair is suddenly growing. Your hips spread, you get stretchmarks, if any, and your chest spurts forward into two large bulbous balloons. If you’re lucky. Or unlucky, depending.

I had hips and boobs at ten, my period at eleven, stretch marks on my boobs and hips because of it. Life was embarrassing. I was the second girl in my high school first year class to have boobs, the others were still flat, and like many, I wore jackets and vests to cover them up. I had hair growing in my arm pits, and my pores blocked up. At eighteen I had to go on the pill to regulate those damn dastardly blood cycles as they were all over the place, and while it helped, it didn’t completely fix the issues. I tried several pills over the years, but after some intermittent bleeding, I had to see the gyno in 2009 for pain I was having.

After having a laparoscopy to see what was wrong, and nothing was, I went on the pill that was the miracle cure. It cut my period down from 5-7 days to 3-4 days. I bled less, had next to no cramping, no pimples and all was perfect.

Until my hair started thinning.

In early 2017 I went back to that gyno because I’d had that damn breakthrough bleeding again, and he switched my pills around and I tried a few others. None worked. And then he left and retired. So I had to put up with it and have tests until I could find another gyno. And no, apparently the pill didn’t cause my hair to thin, but I think it did.

In the meantime, I found out I had a fibroid in my uterus, and was then told it was on my uterus, and I have a gallstone as well.

In late 2017, I finally got to see a gyno and she put me on another pill, not birth control, and that hasn’t really helped either. I’m having pimples again, and while I’m not bleeding inbetween, my cycle cracks a fuckshit and comes when it wants to and lasts for however long it wants to. Like for 16 freakin’ days!!!!

Can you see why I hate being a woman?

Sore boobs, period pain because of bad periods, stretchmarks, fibroids, pimples, thinning hair, chipping nails, bad skin, weight issues due to god knows what. The list seems to be never-ending for issues we have that men don’t. Yes, they can also get breast cancer, but for fuck’s sake, why do we have boobs in the first place when not every woman has children. With the way things have gone, I never will, and that’s another fucked up thing to bitch about. Our biological clock is running out!!!!!

Oh, for fuck’s sake!

I’m sick and tired of wearing makeup, doing my hair, worrying about skin care, keeping my nails from breaking, wearing nice clothes, bleeding whenever my uterus feels like it, etc, etc, etc.

God I wish I was born a boy!

I hate being a woman!!!!!

2017 IN REVIEW! How Mercury ate Mars, shoved itself up Uranus, and then shit great big Mars Bars on me.

23/11/2017 by L.J. Diva Filed Under: Business & Legalities, Humans & Behaviour, Life - Death - Health, The World Leave a Comment

My year in review, oh what a year it has been.

January: started off hot and horrible as it does and I was working through the whole thing. Mum had doctor’s appointments and scans and I went on a low calorie shake diet and lost 6 kilos/14pounds/1stone in three weeks. Started getting some books done in paperback.

February: I came back to blogging under this name and another name as well. I lost 3 kilos/7pounds/.5stone for the month. Bought some blog templates for other websites, and a bunch of photos from Shutterstock for books which were full steam ahead.

March: I started releasing Poems of a Musical Flavour under my real name and was getting the paperbacks done. I released Retribution under this name and made tonnes of plans for the year. I think I also managed to buy myself some things.

April: The shit hit the fan in April. Our local phone company store treated me like absolute shit every time I went in. They were so incredibly unhelpful that I rang the company and they finally helped, paying that month’s phone bill and sorting out the mess their store had created. A second company, our Social Security, decided to screw with me and cut off part of my money as it was “in review”, and mum’s bank decided to screw with her.

By now, I was down 12kilos/28pounds/2stone. Went to see gyno for screwed up menstrual cycle, he changed my pills back to the ones he took me off in 2008.

Had books corrected.

May: Social Security cut my extras completely and I had to hurriedly re-arrange the publishing schedule for the year and do as much as I could towards it. It also meant most things had to be moved for later in the year but all of the Poems had to be finished. They’re still not, now, the covers need tweaks, but since I’m with a publishing company…more on that later… Had the current novel, Forever, edited.

Bought a dress from eBay that never arrived and blogged about it over at Jewel Divas Style. Had to go after the postal company for a refund.

Went back to the gyno.

June: Mum had a visit to the cancer clinic, and I had a couple of doctor’s appointments. Joined Author’s Alliance and bought a bunch of domain names and a business name as I decided to set up a publishing house.

At this point I’ve left lots out. Mums had multiple appointments because the doctor, and the hospital, screwed her around with her breast screens, but I can’t keep up with which months.

July: Bought more web templates for certain websites and decided to move hosting companies because ANOTHER company was screwing me over. They pissed me around so badly, they left websites down and didn’t bother helping at all. Fuck them!

Joined Gsuite for all of my emails, posted my half yearly schedule, and my style site, Jewel Divas Style turned 8.

Had to delete Indesign because of the cost. They stuffed me around with the final payment too. Decided to trademark three names.

Had eye test done, apparently need glasses to make reading clearer! Found out I had a fibroid in my uterus.

August: Bought another web template, had books corrected (costing me a bundle over the years). Decided to buy more business names and domain names I’m up to…quite a few… and I changed my publishing house name. Started setting up the L.J. Diva and Porn Star Brothers websites.

Mum finally got in to the hospital for her fat legs and was told she may need them bandaged every day to get the swelling down.

September: renewed my Sleuths and Norton subscriptions, and Jewel Divas business name. Decided to trademark a bunch of names for business. Way too many! Had gained weight so went back on diet and lost 3 kilos/7pounds/.5stone, and had hand x-rays.

October: bought a second-hand Macbook Pro from eBay and downloaded Vellum for doing my paperbacks which will save me massive amounts. The L.J. Diva and Porn Star Brothers websites were professionally finished and they went live.

Got the four paperback interiors done for the Porn Star Brothers novellas. Decided Vellum was not good enough for the overall look I wanted in paperback and went back to MS Word. Also decided to keep Poems, Bones, and #teenblogger professional looking with the book designer I use. Finished off another website.

Found out I had osteoarthritis in my fingers as well as a gallstone, and that fibroid I was told was in my uterus, nope, ON my uterus and not causing the mega bitch bleeding I’ve been having.

Mum finally called the hospital for her leg appointment. Had a bunch of appointments, mum found out she had another cancer which was removed.

We also had a mass amount of tradies doing work, and our manager came for the yearly inspection. Still haven’t got my money from Social Security.

Got my tax done, waste of money, but I need to do it to keep my business number and I learned the hard way a few years back when I had to file four tax returns at a cost of over $800 and try and get my business number back. I’ve done it every year since.

Ended the month with more issues than when I started and posted about the new Porn Star Brothers website.

November: Revealed my new author website and posted book reviews on Valley of the Dolls and Lace. This is the last month of the year that I’ve been blogging, and hopefully December and January will be better. I’ve posted my writing schedule’s yearly update below. Most of the list has been done except for what’s left, and that will be done eventually over the next few months and into the new year.

Next year’s schedule is all ready to go, and who knows, maybe I’ll get a holiday over xmas and new year’s. Three days off here and there.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In February I told you of my writing plan for the year. Now it’s time for a full year catch up.

I’ve edited the plan to show what’s happened and what hasn’t so I’ve colour coded all of them. Green is for ‘done’, orange is for ‘in the process of’, red is for ‘not done yet’.

(1) Under Tiara King the two series I had planned to write have been waylaid for another year or two but…

– 1 – I did release the six book series, Poems Of A Musical Flavour, from March across e-book. The paperbacks have been mostly done and need tweaking as setting up my own publishing house came up, and along with the omnibus edition in e-book and paperback, will hopefully be out March 2018.

– 2 – I released two books in paperback, How To Be A Jewel Diva and Closet Confidential in May. I have decided to add to them in 2018 and will re-release under my own imprint.

– 3 – I haven’t got #teenblogger to Ellen DeGeneres yet, but it’s in the planning.

– 4 – I want to get my jewellery back into its own website but it’s on the plan, so we’ll see. Selling has been on hold during the year to save money and time. I’m still looking for wordpress.org templates that would suit the type of website look I want, but with everything else going on, this won’t happen for some time.

(2) Under T.K. Wrathbone

– 1 – I released a paperback in March called Two Bone: Anthology 2 which is 2016’s stories in paperback.

– 2 – I got three stories written, typed up, edited, assessed, and out along with an anthology. Thank God I had already done the e-covers. All four were released late in the year.

– 3 – Will get the paperback version done professionally and it will be out in March 2018…I think.

(3) Under L.J. Diva

– 1 – I’ve started getting the first four Porn Stars books done in paperback plus an omnibus edition of all four and release them across
September and October. Didn’t quite happen! I only did the interiors myself late October, but the covers need to be done and they will be out next year. The omnibus e-book was released in September and the paperback version will be on sale in March 2018 along with the four novellas and the paperback of Forever, as well as the e-book of Love Never Dies.

– 2 – I typed up book #2 and had it edited, assessed, and a cover done for release in September 2017, it is called Forever. The paperback will be done for release in 2018.

– 3 – get books #3, #4, #5, #6 typed up along with any short stories if I have time. (so far, only #3 is typed up and being edited this month)

– 4 – Did the websites for the book series, plus an author one purely for books and they are live.

– 5 – Got family and business trees for the book series made up. The Stephanopoulos family tree is huge and keeps growing with every book, along with the business tree. I also have character lists and a family/book timeline typed up but that is an ongoing process. All are up on the Porn Star Brothers site now.

Sexual Assault and Double Standards, and Why Studio 10 Made Excuses For it.

17/08/2017 by L.J. Diva Filed Under: Humans & Behaviour, Manners & Decency, Movies & TV 2 Comments

There was a contestant on our version of Survivor, who appeared on channel ten show, The Project, and spoke of how she had met co-host Tommy Little at one of his comedy gigs a few years back.

She laughed and joked like an idiot (in fact, she reminds me of an even dopier Amy Schumer) and the others urged her to tell her story then pissed themselves laughing at it.

Turns out, years ago she was dared by a friend to grab his crotch backstage at a gig.

He promptly called security and had her thrown out and blocked her on Facebook.

The next day on another channel ten show, Studio 10, they talked about the incident and whether it was a double standard. If it was a man grabbing a women’s crotch, would they all be laughing and thinking it’s okay. Donald Trump’s pussy comment was brought up.

Apparently it wouldn’t be, but you can laugh at a woman grabbing a man’s crotch because it is. The woman who was on talking about it made all kinds of excuses for Aimee and said it wasn’t a double standard in this case because of context.

LET ME GIVE YOU FUCKING CONTEXT.

1 – Tommy did not ask her to grab him.

2 – He did not encourage her to do it.

3 – He had security throw her out and

4 – blocked her on Facebook.

The definition of sexual assault according to google is –

Sexual assault is any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient. Falling under the definition of sexual assault are sexual activities as forced sexual intercourse, forcible sodomy, child molestation, incest, fondling, and attempted rape.

So the moral of the story is…regardless of what sex you are, you DO NOT GRAB ANOTHER PERSON’S CROTCH.

Oh, and guess what they forget to mention in their haste to excuse her behaviour and not pass it off as assault…

The fact that we teach our children, that if a stranger touches your private parts, that it is wrong and to tell your parents because it is assault.

So…once we’re an adult it’s perfectly okay to grab someone’s privates and that if a woman does it it’s funny?

Anyone see the double standard, incredibly sexist and massively screwed up view of laws and society here?

Adults can’t grab a kid’s crotch, a man can’t grab a woman’s crotch, but it’s perfectly okay if a woman grabs a guy’s crotch?

So fucking not correct!

And no, it has NOTHING to do with her being ocker!

It’s wrong, plain and fucking simple because it’s called SEXUAL ASSAULT!

People Who Take Credit Where Credit is Definitely NOT DUE!

01/06/2017 by L.J. Diva Filed Under: Humans & Behaviour Leave a Comment

This is something that pisses me to the core. And it happened to me all the way back in primary school.

It always shit me how I would be asked to do things by kids in my class and then they never had the guts to own up to not doing them.

In year 7, a so-called friend who sat next to me asked me to drawer the cover of a book for her. It was a class thing; we got books from the library and had to replicate the cover. She asked, I did, purely because I was raised to be nice and friendly and help people out. So what happened? All of the girls passed our tables and told her how great her picture was. And what did she do? She THANKED THEM!

Not that SHE did it, oh HELL TO THE NO, she didn’t do the cover herself and didn’t say she hadn’t, just accepted the credit for it. This girl screwed me over a few times that year. I don’t know whether it was because she was Greek or the way she was raised, as a flake that flaked out of things and let people down.

All of my life people have let me down, taken what they could take, and given nothing in return and it PISSES ME OFF.

I got so sick and tired of being used that by year 10 I refused everyone everything. I refused to lend my pencils/textas etc because I knew I wouldn’t get them back (like my sunglasses I loaned a male classmate in our year 9 musical and he gave them to someone else and gave me a shit pair in return) or I’d get them back broken. Well no more. No more being used. I was asked by a girl in my class to draw her year 10 typing assignment cover for her, I said no, she called me a bitch. Well fuck you! Glad I didn’t.

In 1996 mum and I started line dancing, and in the early days people thought they could use me to teach them dances because I picked them up so quick. I had rumours and lies spread about me and was used. I was also over it.

All of this has made me be the “meanie” I am today. I’ve had goods broken, not returned. I’ve been used and treated badly for it. Well fuck all of you arseholes, do your fucking shit yourselves and stop being lazy bastards. I’m not responsible for your bullshit, just my own. And no, you can’t wear my clothes or try on my jewellery. If you break it you won’t give a fuck because it’s not yours and you certainly wouldn’t pay for it. Nope, you’d just shrug your shoulders, roll your eyes and go, “it’s not mine”, in your immature whine.

Well then mine is not yours and you ain’t getting anything of mine in the future. You don’t get my time unless I have it and you fucking well pay for it. And pay well.

That brings me back to my fucking brother when he came back into our lives early 2015. All he showed was what a little user he was. Got $400 off mum for his birthday and several of us did, and then within 10 days asked for more. And stupid her loaned it and guess what, two years later he STILL hasn’t paid it back. If I wasn’t living with mum I’d have fuck all to do with any of them. Unfortunately I don’t get a choice; I can just very loudly voice my opinion. Not that mum ever wants to hear it.

And his partner! Well, she made plans about me and told mum but didn’t have the balls to even talk to me about it. She told mum she was all excited to take my jewellery down to her place and sell at local markets. She told mum she was going to get me to sell her shit on eBay. Did she talk to me? Fuck no! If she had’ve I would have told her to pay full price for the jewellery if she wanted to re-sell it. There’s no way in fucking hell it’s leaving the house with her. In 2015 when mum was sick she rang at 8:12 am, woke me up after 3 hours sleep all night and told me she’d gotten a new computer and was going to write a book. Not long ago she told mum she couldn’t work the computer. Hope she doesn’t expect me to teach her.

And after they had been here for three or four visits in 2015, she walked in here and told me she had gotten books from the library and knew how to fix my nose problems when 1 – I haven’t talked to her about my nose problems, so 2 – she had no fucking idea what was wrong with me, and 3 – how fucking arrogant. She later told mum I had “shut her down” when she’d brought it up. I nearly went into the lounge room and said ‘well what do you expect, you have no fucking idea what my health issues are and here you are arrogantly telling me you’ve fixed it’. How fucking rude!

Have you had people use you then take credit? What did they do and what did you do about it?