A thousand losers suddenly pop-up out of nowhere anytime somebody regurgitates the hackneyed ‘Failure makes you strong, success makes you lousy.’ The cacophonic pretentious word cry of lousy keyboard troopers who sprinkle salt all over the world would come to a halt if everybody could have an unwavering lick of triumph occasionally. The world economy might get transferred to the flaps of inferno but that would just be about it. Now it could be accomplished by whoring around or writing, we would not judge, but Posers Beware! , for you mix the two of them and that is irredeemable.
The internet is amongst the most important inventions of all time. And its status might as well grow to reach the top. For mostly everything today can be and is done over it. Its tremendous contribution to all spheres of all is unparalleled; from equipping surgeons with robots to conduct the most complex of surgeries that require unmissable precision to enabling remote classes to stream from the gothic, grand structures of Oxford. But then again, with every forward step that the internet takes, its gargantuan mass creates footprint dents so deep- demons rise from beneath the surface world to infect the gullible with their pettiness.
“You have destroyed the very thing you swore to become.”
Upon getting to know the protagonist of this blog.
It is estimated that the number of books published each year ranges between one million to four million. And like every other profession in the world, it has stiff, bitter rivalries, made millionaires, and often destroyed inflated egos. Words can transform lives-just listen to Lose Yourself by Eminem. They can also destroy careers, just ask Machine Gun Kelly.
Neither am I a sadist by any stretch of imagination nor do I endorse destroying somebody just for the sake of it.
To hell with all this fictional character build-up suspense, let me take you to a ride about a rider who, for all her career has ridden on fantasies and Road Rash style kicked the poor racers who were just embracing the woods and wind, hoping she could win, but at the culmination of the race- all she got was the famous toilet seat welcome, even to which she eventually became accustomed and now does nothing but spew venom and throw shit at spotless professionals and businesses.
But before I tell you about her, let me present to you a short story that is quite similar to the Aesop’s Fable ‘The Witch’, Of course, the Aesop’s Fable has the moral that “One should be caution of people who promise they’ll solve all your problems when they’re unable to fix their own”.
The story goes as:
There used to be a stuck up and snobby little woman by the name Strictoria Vauss who claimed that she can guide travelers to the safest path. She opened a shop at that corner of the town where travelling business bloomed.
She was good at screaming up a storm of nonsense and taking away the business of other travel service providers, even though she did not have any services to offer of her own. She just spewed venom and brought down other's businesses. She was a wannabe bully.
Still, since she had no valuable services to provide and was not a worthy traveler herself, she was poor and miserable. With her muddy little Amherst, MA shack she lives in as the only ‘Crown jewel’ of hers, signifying her career of being a failed old hag from the travelling business.
Then people whose business she was maliciously hurting asked her to stop and refrain. She did not listen. So, the townsfolk put the big and high nosed, white hair having bitter old hag to trial. They asked her to show her credentials. They asked if she had ever been out of the city, had she known any glory ever. A proper investigation was put in place.
The following things were uncovered:
She once tried to travel into the wilderness, but her techniques were so flawed that she was put down by all the respected people in the business, and her pathetic little bids never brought her any commercial success or complimentary reviews.
• Before being this hateful and bitter old hag, in her long-gone days of youth she used to visit the wizards to acquire the much sought-after substitute of actual travelling skills through the wizard's magic stick.
• She took the alias Vicky Midnight and used to dance naked in front of wizards to get whatever money was thrown at her.
• It was ascertained that she was especially well versed with the art of the stripper pole of Cheetah's in Vegas.
• She was once put in handcuffs on the charge of prostitution, as she was using her mouth on some wizard's magic wand in a cottage parking area.
• But this scheming old hag was able to go free because she traded her body to another wizard to help her out.
Clearly all the things she had learnt from her time in Vegas left her with a slick mouth and a used and torn body, which were now the only thing closest to a skill that she possessed and now these were all that she used to get ahead in life.
The court determined that this is what she does, she uses her slimy wizard wand serving mouth to spew venom over other successful people and make statements without any factual basis, she is bitter that she is now all used up and never amounted to anything, all her pathetic attempts have failed miserably, every respected person in her field has dismissed and snubbed her, she’s had no commercial success and now she spends her days by letting out her inner jealousy and hatred for self by trying to malign and bully other businesses.
She cannot bear to see other people become successful and run flourishing businesses, because that is a reminder of how big a failure, she herself is and it reminds her of the days that she had to let herself get used to accomplish anything worthwhile as she had no talent of herself. So now all the hatred she has for herself, she channels into being a bitter old hag, and spews venom about successful people.
Hearing all this as the court announced its judgement, Strictoria Vauss could not keep her calm and became hysterical. She started screaming and shouting. She started tearing her clothes off and got naked. Once again, she was using her body. By now her old and used, wrinkled and frail body had a lot of scars on it, accumulated from all those years of being put to use at Cheetah's Pole and God knows how many Wizards' Wands. She had scars all over her breasts, which later became her defining feature for the townsfolk.
After the hearing, people used to remark, "Funny her breasts are like this, cause her name's letters spell 'Various Tit Scars' too".
The court asked her to pay a hefty fine for her actions, but she did not have that money. So, she had to start going to Cheetah’s in order to make her monthly payments of the imposed fine.
But most importantly, after the trial She was entirely discredited.
Everybody now knew her for what she was. Nobody took her seriously.
But even after all this she did not close her shop, she continued her, now much laughed at, practice of shouting falsehoods about other's businesses, even though nobody took her seriously, she was now a source of entertainment, a joke.
“Strictoria Vauss is a joke. She is a failed wannabe who cannot stand to see others do well and is now a bitter old bully. Old Hag energy personified. She can scream all she wants, hate others all she wants, all that will never change how much she hates herself,” successful business owners and townsfolk could regularly be heard engaging in conversations along these lines.
Another common saying in the town is, "’Traveler Beware’ screams Vicky Midnight, who herself couldn’t do any one thing right."
Moral: We must be cautious of those who claim to be leading you to the right path, when all the roads they themselves could never follow a fruitful path.
Especially when their old path is chock-full with stripper poles and hoe stories.
Now, with that short story in mind, let’s talk about Victoria Straus, the woman behind writerbeware.blog who claims to be a successful writer for adults and young adults. Surprisingly, her story is strikingly similar to the short story presented above.
So much so that any interested reader who will do a little bit of digging into Victoria’s ‘career’ may even conclude that Strictoria Vauss’s story is actually pretty similar to Victoria’s. Moreover, the character analysis of Strictoria and Victoria will also produce results that run similar.
Any reader would not be mistaken to recognize some of the glaringly obvious similarities such as:
• Victoria Strauss is also a failed writer without any commercial success to speak of.
• Victoria Strauss uses her "writer-watchdog" blog to take out her bitterness towards the world by attempting to bully other businesses as a means of dealing with her failure as a writer.
• Victoria Strauss has not been taken seriously by any of the prominent people in her field and has even been snubbed by them on more than one occasion, e.g., by Nora Roberts and the likes. In the past she had been snubbed by real writers (those with credits, success, and money in the bank from the fruits of their labor) at various writing conferences over the years.
• Publishing houses such as Simon & Schuster, Penguin, and even Harlequin have turned down her ‘work’ because, Victoria Strauss is a terrible writer, a total "hack" as described by several editors.
• Victoria Strauss' "writer beware" blog is used to malign other business and the content there has no factual basis; she uses this blog as a tool to lash out because of her feelings of inferiority among people she foolishly fantasizes as being her "peers" (commercially successful novelists).
• When she looks into the mirror and tries to reminisce where she went wrong, she finds Vicky Midnight staring back at her and remembers her days in Las Vegas and misses the days of easy money when she was a stripper and prostitute. (Old and frail as she is now, she knows those days are long gone.)
The list is not exhaustive, I am sure some interested reader may recognize even more similarities between Victoria and Strictoria.
Overall, Victoria Strauss is a failed commercial writer, who is impatient by her own admission (she has a blog post dedicated to this), and does not like to do prep work for her writings and prefers to just "wing it," as she has been doing with her life decisions (including in her days as a prostitute). She even admits that many of her ideas about her books have come to her in her dreams.
Given the routine false and made-up statements that she makes on her blog about other people, it is not difficult to imagine that she follows the same methodology for her blogs. Dreaming up stuff in her loftiest fantasies and writing it for all to see, and none of it worthy being in print or being read by anyone with even mild intellect. Likely this is derivative of a deeper cognitive problem that would be best addressed by a psychiatrist (one of the caliber that she cannot afford due to her lack of financial success in any industry).
I am quite sure that just like Strictoria Vauss, Victoria Strauss hates herself too, and this venom she spews is just her telling the world in her own peculiar way that she is a huge failure, a terrible writer, and a bitter old used up hag. If she hates you, then probably it means you are living her dream because she knows damn well she isn't living hers.
So, listen up here Victoria Strauss.
You are a joke; you are a failed wannabe who cannot stand to see others do well and are now a bitter old bully.
You are Old Hag energy personified.
You can scream all you want, hate others all you want, all that will never change how much you hate yourself or what a big failure you are at life.
In circles of respectable writers, these words are more common than you might think. But how can we expect you to know this, you have never been a part of any such circle because you've never been a successful novelist?
Victoria Strauss, I pray for you that you overcome your inner demons and a day comes soon when you can look into the mirror and love yourself again, not because it’ll stop your bullying ways, but because it will allow you to breathe your last with peace, because you’re getting old and now is the time to let things go.
Holding hatred in is bad for the heart and soul. Let these things go before you die.
Victoria Strauss, you may have seen a lot of monsters in your time, do not let them win and turn you into one (although it may be too late for that).
Just remember the following:
He who fights monsters should look into that he himself does not become a monster…. for when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.
P.S. It's only a matter of a short time before every search engine will pick up this story about your sordid past. Pretty soon, when people type in "Victoria Strauss," this post about you will be listed as a #1 link on every search engine. Maybe it's time for you to take down all the nonsense B.S. you have to say about everyone else on your bogus blog before your entire reputation gets ruined thanks to the power of SEO.
