I am finding it hard, this last week, to concentrate. Things I like to do, things I hate doing, and everything in between: I have a very short attention span.

Example: yesterday Thor and Penny called up and invited me to see The Devil Wears Prada. This was a lovely thing for them to do, as they know how hard things have been these last couple weeks and wanted to offer me some time off. The Mathematician was doing fine and wanted me to go, so I did.

And I hardly remember anything about the movie, except the bits where Meryl Streep teaches us all what it means to be an incredibly sharp tongued, quick thinking, abusive, self aggrandizing bitch with excellent fashion sense. Somewhere recently I read the sentence: it is harder to be kind than to be cruel. In which case, Meryl Streep's character doesn't like a challenge. I don't think these impressions are what the film maker was hoping for, but that's what I came away with.

At home I check email and various websites and weblogs and open Pajama Jones and read a bit and make a few changes and talk to myself about the scene I should get done today, and then in a bit I wander off to check something on the internet and I end up at eBay looking at vintage aprons, china saucers without cups, signed editions of books I wouldn't want under any circumstances, lawn furniture (we have no lawn), and contemplating the great variety of stuff available to American consumers.

Last night I made the mistake of going to look at the reader reviews of my books on Amazon. Of which there are many positive, even generous and expansive ones. But there are also negative reviews, mostly of two types: the straight forward not-for-me reviews, with or without argument; and the people who post reviews to get even with some real or imagined slight. Most often this second kind of reviewer is from the brigade of people whose responsibility it is to ride out and defend Diana Gabaldon from all usurpers to her throne. For example, a Ms. Piper who gave Fire Along the Sky one star and a review with the title: "This author's work is basically a rip off of another much better writer." Here's the whole thing for you to ponder along with me:

I have read her first three books and they were pretty good but very familiar. I think she tends to copy her style from another well known series writer. Her work has gotten progressively worse from book to book. Basically read Into the Wilderness and possibly Dawn on a Distant Shore but stop there. If you want a great series you can sink your teeth into, read Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series and Dorothy Dunnetts Lymond Chronicles, they are vastly superior.

You know, this might make me mad or depress me if I weren't so tired of the whole you're-not-Diana-so-die song and dance. I am very aware I'm not Diana, and I'm also not Dorothy Dunnett. I have no wish to be either of these women. Especially not Dorothy, as she died a few years ago and I'm hoping for another thirty or forty years.

It takes me about a minute to work through the claims this reviewer makes. Are my novels getting worse from book to book? Obviously that's a matter of opinion, and AmyLou believes they are. I don't. So we'll call that one a draw. Have I been copying my style from Diana and/or Dorothy Dunnett? Here I can say more definitely, no. The differences are so large and broad that anybody who has read the work of all three of us would not mistake one for the other. This is a claim I've heard before, though, so it's clearly something being bandied about and picked up. Anything I can do about it? Nope. Any use in challenging Ms. Piper to back up her claims? Absolutely not.

Then there is Kristin, a self proclaimed historical fiction junkie, who gives Fire Along the Sky five stars but gets in her licks anyway: "While lean on historical accuracies, this book delivers if you are looking for an entertaining story with some sexual tension and interesting characters. It is simply a very enjoyable read - nothing more. Just fun!"

First, I find this a little confusing. Did she skip the part where children died, where a whole village was laid waste? Where hearts were broken and families torn apart? Maybe her definition of fun is just different from mine. But oh, the rest of her slings and arrows really do have the potential to injure, as I pride myself on my research... but then pride cometh before the prat fall. Fortunately my tender sensibilities are soothed by the fact that Audiofile's review is also on the same page, and their take is very different: "Her lively, intelligent reading gives Donati's well-researched historical fiction the power it deserves."

Now you know what authors do when they are feeling vulnerable, out of sorts, and out of touch. We look for validation, and sometimes we are punished for our neediness by the casual (or not so casual) snarkiness of strangers.

The lessons to be taken from all this:

1. I know my own strengths and weaknesses. I can tell a story, I can write a sentence. I'm comfortable disregarding and disagreeing with Ms. Piper's assessment of the quality of my work.

2. Some people like my work, and some never will, and that's the way it goes. AmyLou doesn't like my stuff -- and her reasons, whether they make sense to me or not, whether they are logical or fair or not -- don't matter. She's entitled not to like my work, and she's entitled to tell other people that in her opinion, my work isn't worth reading.

3. The hard core Gabaldon Defense Riders have put me on their permanent search-and-destroy list and there's nothing to be done about it. Or maybe this will work, if I have it printed on the cover of all my books and tattooed on my forehead:

Diana Gabaldon is the premiere writer of her generation. The rest of us cannot hope to compete. If you have not read all her work, put the book I wrote down and go buy the full set of her novels, novellas, short stories, and reader guides. After that, in the unlikely event that you will ever need or want to read another author, you might come back to this lowly and inferior book for purposes of comparison alone. But I doubt it.

4. Finally: I have to find some way to block access to Amazon from my computer.