Who is Bronwyn West…

And why won’t she stop bugging me?

Ah, the terrors of social networking. We all have to do it, published authors in the midlist, I mean. The stars of romance fiction don’t have to, but some of them do anyway; Nora doesn’t have to, but she pops up now and then on blog message boards. You don’t often see Mary Balogh, Diana Gabaldon, or Jo Beverley, though.

Facebook, Myspace, BookBlogs, Published Authors ning… those are some of the ones I do, as well as blogging here and on the Casablanca blog.

But FaceBook… grrr! I routinely friend anyone who asks, and as long as they behave nicely, I leave things be. (I don’t respond to the ‘John Doe just became a fan of John Doe and thinks you should too’ idiots) But there’s always one in a crowd who goes overboard, and it seems to me that on FaceBook Bronwyn West (nice name, btw) whoever she is, is that one person. It started innocently enough with the page suggestions, etc. Then I noticed multiple suggestions from her for every single freaking fracking social networking site online, sometimes ten a day. I had had enough a week or so ago, so I unfriended her on FaceBook and sent her a sternly worded letter asking her to please take me off whatever list she has me on.

After that I got a chipper and impersonal note saying she had started up an email account for me!!! The nerve… an email account!! That’s mighty personal.
This morning it was two from her for Octopop, whatever that is!!!

In my spam email box this morning I had another Bronwyn West invitation for something called Naijapals, to meet Nigerian Pals, and now (I’m sure you’ve all gotten plenty of the Nigerian 419 scam emails) I’m beginning to wonder if I should feel sorry for Bronwyn. Has her mail or FaceBook been hacked into? Poor woman. Actually, her picture looks very nice, smiling face, kind eyes. Maybe I’ve been too hard on her. Should I refriend her?

Oh Noooo… I’ve drunk the social networking koolaid! Help me before I friend again.