[Edits done, one necessary for clarity, on Jan. 27, 2012. These are shown between asterisks.]
I am setting up this "billboard" of information to stave off confusion, disinformation, etc., while I sort out various issues--such as getting my personal Web site back online (which may end up not happening). I have deliberately not been quick to replace the Web site, or otherwise post online info beyond what was squeezed into the little "lily pad" of my LinkedIn page, while I have pursued (or met) a number of different options and responsibilities: one option being to see if I could do without a personal Web site for a while (I pulled it in August 2011), and the responsibilities including such stark exigencies as my mother's having a recurrence of cancer this past fall (she first had cancer in 2001), which automatically entails certain practical problems for me.
One exigency (which caused grief not quite of the type as does a relative's cancer, but was vexing enough) was a welling up of weird developments in October 2011 following the blog Writer Beware's posting a set of interesting information on what I call the online "front" The Write Agenda. This all might seem to outsiders like a remote clot of irrelevant online "kerfuffle," except--among other useful things I can say about (1) what The Write Agenda appears to me to be about, (2) what Writer Beware's dealings with it with its blog in October 2011 meant and led to, and (3) a certain legal effort that I made regarding The Write Agenda in December 2011--there is this that I need to address: there are several Google Books "metadata" pages suggesting that there are, or may in the future be, copies of books I published (particularly with the titles A Transient and The Folder Hunt), under the trade name Bootstrap Editorial Services, floating around somewhere, as well as book-search pages (as under the Web services Chegg and Valore Books) that suggest one or more people have sought these books.
If people are genuinely interested in finding these books (an "if" that I don't believe characterizes everyone who may have caused these sites to rise in search results), these people deserve information from me on what is up with the books. This blog will contain (when I get around to it) further info on these books--whether they are available, in what form, and when. And I will have other things to say related to this matter.
One could argue that I've been "too slow on the draw" to respond to exigencies on the Internet such as the proliferation of sites suggesting searches for my books--some might argue that speediness of response is necessary when the Internet quintessentially is a thing of speed, worldwide exposure, and hectic proliferation of unforeseen consequences. I've felt it doesn't pay, especially regarding so important a set of issues as my current situation regarding publishing books, to exercise speed at the expense of judicious deliberation and carefully crafted strategy. And if a wealth of Internet readers, with desktop computers in bedrooms, with laptops in cafes, and wherever else in farflung locations worldwide are wondering what is up with this dweeb, Greg Ludwig, and his supposed books, they ought to realize that, after pursuing my career in its various phases and on its multiple levels, I believe that keeping your business "together and straight" on the ground first is essential, and after that, you tap-dance on the Internet for the benefit of the denizens there who are prone to jump to conclusions about you on the basis of the flotsam and jetsam floating around in search results. I admit, though, I've been slower than I would have wanted in responding in the thorough way I would have liked. I've hoped my tiny LinkedIn messages were sufficient for the time being.
Example: It struck me, for reasons I won't detail here, that people thought I was one of the, as severe skeptics of it might say, "guttersnipes" who were apparently behind The Write Agenda. This while I in my own little life was worried (increasingly as 2011 went on) about that "front," particularly what one could call the "flagship" blog, since mid-April 2011. I had to find ways to make it convincingly clear that I was not behind that front that I myself worried about. So, in fall 2011, as one of several measures I took, with the tiny resources I had, I had a scan made of my interrogatory ("rog" is the attorney slang) responses in 2008 in the Bauer v. Glatzer case, put the scan in Google Docs, and set up a link to this on my LinkedIn page, combined with scraps of explanation. *[More precisely, three pdfs were made, each of about a third of the total document. Only the first third was posted online.]* Did people get what this all said? That if I should be handled by a former literary agent as she did me in her 2008 "rogs," that if this agent was so obviously endorsed by The Write Agenda, then I would be nothing short of hugely head-injured, or grand-mal totally off the rails, to be part of The Write Agenda?
Here is another strategically posed comment: You may see from the available pdf of the decision on my motion for summary judgment in September 2008 that the judge's decision on my MSJ was rendered the same day as was that for the MSJ for codefendant Shweta Narayan. Narayan's attorney, Grayson Barber, *and I* were allies, side by side at the defense table, in this suit. Barber helped me a bit, and I believe I helped her. We had communicated over a period of months before that September 2008 hearing. So why, if The Write Agenda contains info (such as in a page from about August 12, 2011) suggesting that Narayan would be named again in an amended form of the suit (you might be aware that the Bauer suit was dismissed without prejudice in November 2010, which means it could be re-filed)--why would I be behind this blog when I was a sort of colleague of Narayan's in the trenches fighting against the suit in September 2008? Use your head. Read the relevant legal documents. It's the kind of stupidity that had some people thinking I was behind The Write Agenda in 2011 that, apart from my posting "ripostes" to this idea in fall 2011, left me (on a level) unmoved to answer such stupidity right away. You can't answer every instance of stupidity about you on the Internet; it would waste too much precious energy.
(A side issue: If people have been exercising a dose of skepticism about my legal info, especially the welter of stuff that had been on one page of my Web site through mid-August 2011, because "I am not a lawyer," I would answer: Of course I'm not a lawyer; that's beside the point. In this matter, I don't have to be. I had an MSJ approved twice; I appeared in court twice; I was sworn in in the courtroom; my legal papers (amateurish as they were) were accepted by the court. Whether I had expertise or authority as a "legal professional" had no more relevance to my right (after I was dismissed from the suit) to defend my reputation and provide a legal service in posting info on the case than I might have in telling what I did to fight off a bear intruding into my house: whether I was trained and certified in animal husbandry or fish-and-game management would not be relevant to my right to tell my story of what it took to subdue and oust the bear by main force in my own amateurish but hearty way. And when it comes to the Internet--regarding which we can say that, like rain, it "falls" on both the just and unjust--we need to be aware that not everyone can pay for an attorney to deal with an invasion premised on some contentions about the Internet--some of us will be good Americans and be ferocious pro se defendants or the like: "minutemen" scrambling to get some crap weapon out of the garage to fight off the otiose, robot-like Redcoat.)
So there you have both a clarifying set of info about where I stand on The Write Agenda (if you needed it) *and* something of my "philosophy" of dealing with what amounts in some instances to Internet harassment of me (and others) tied to my literary endeavors.
If you found this entry too ponderous (for Internet scanning), I will definitely try to be more economical in the future. Or, in the future, where appropriate, I could just tell you to take a hike.
