I have discovered a NEW DISEASE! Worship me!

[kaigou]

I say we create a new wiki page to discuss a newly-identified syndrome, which I suggest we name after its two most prominent victims: Rice-Hamilton disorder.

---

Rice-Hamilton disorder (RHD) is a very rare authorial egotistical disorder (AED), but is controllable if caught in time and treated properly. It is the least common of the genre-specific authorial infections (GSAI); it appears to strike female authors exclusively. There are no known male cases.

Misdiagonsis
RHD should not be mistaken for a milder AED, called reader-aggravated frustration (RAF), which is a short-term illness usually lasting no more than a week. Studies have shown RAF is caused almost exclusively by environmental triggers, although these are often identical to those causing the active cycle in RHD. While RAF is not normally career-threatening, repeated exposure has been known to lower the author's sensitivity to future bouts. Avoidance behaviors may lead the author to abandon writing for a new career, often as a mid-level manager at a home insurance company.

Pathology
RHD appears to be caused by a combination of natural ego and long-term genre exposure; there also appears to be a strong link between RHD and high sales numbers, when reduced critical acclaim is present. The onset of the disorder's active cycle is often triggered by external events, such as a harsh professional review, a particularly obtuse reader on Amazon, or being named on Fandom Wank. Both the natural drive for recognition, and prolific writing skills, further enable the retaliation cycles, thus significantly increasing the disorder's hold on the sufferer with each additional cycle.

Transmission
This disorder is not infectious; however, it may be that exposure to RHD early in an author's career may somehow inoculate the author against potential RHD development later.[-citation needed]

Risk Factors
Studies have indicated that several crucial elements must be present for RHD to occur, although most authors with these risk factors will never develop RHD. There are still many questions on why some authors develop RHD and others do not.

At least four of the following factors are required for an author to be considered at-risk for RHD.

1. Post-college age, with at least four best sellers.[1]
   
2. Writes in the horror-fantasy sub-genre focused on vampires.
   
3. Specifically approaches vampires as sympathetic, sometimes hyper-sexed, often broody.
   
4. Vehemently protective of created world and characters.
   
5. Stridently anti-fanfic[2]; may employ, or plans to employ, a law firm for anti-fanfic purposes.

In borderline cases where only three symptoms are present, the determining factor is three or more recorded episodes of purchasing gifts for own characters, dressing up as characters, or responding to fan letters in characters' voices. If such are present, the diagnosis is considered both accurate and undeniable.

Symptoms
Authorial disorders of this nature are associated with distress and paranoia, and a relatively high risk of hissy fits. Unlike the AEDs a normal author might experience, one with RHD experiences extreme reader-directed antagonism that can last for months to years. This state is prefaced by a long gestation period during which the ego levels rise incrementally along with sales, which is often misdiagnosed as a chronic variant of RAF.

Additional symptoms may include:

• Plot deficiency; often rationalizes with 'character-driven' defense.
  
• Grandiosity; self-identifies as the ultimate standard for the genre.
  
• Consistently illogical; unable to recognize fallacies in verbal or written communcation.
  
• Narcissism; encourages perceived fan-obsession with author's sex life or political opinions.
  
• Excessive talkativeness; often combined with mono-focus on hardships of being an author.
  
• Risk-taking behaviors; acts out by poking crazy screechy monkeys with a stick.

Complications
With only a small pool of RHD cases available for study, scientists must rely on anecdotal evidence. So far the research indicates a lack of editorial oversight is directly correlated to a hastening of the disorder's progress. Limited editorial involvement may increase the RHD sufferer's perceived need to protect herself from fandom, thus prompting the disorder to enter its active attack-cycle.

Unfortunately, past a certain point in the disorder's progress, increased editorial oversight may backfire. The RHD sufferer may withdraw entirely, switching to a different publishing house from which she will then attack both fans and former editors.

Prevention
RHD is truly one of those disorders in which an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The simplest means is to dissuade female authors from remaining in the fantasy-horror vampire sub-genre longer than three books. Another course of treatment is to encourage any at-risk author to attempt one or more of the following.

1. Regular exposure to current and historical authors in genre, with self-assessment geared towards achieving humility in comparisons.
   
2. Embrace fandom, especially fanart and fanfic; at minimum, use self-hypnosis to willfully ignore fandom existence.
   
3. Learn relaxation techniques for use during self-googling when critical reviews, fan forums, or fanfiction domains may appear in search results.
   
4. In more extreme risk-cases, remove all access from the internet; limit interaction to monthly updates on official web site.
   
5. Rewrite vampires as bloodthirsty, unsexy, vicious rabid dogs too busy killing things to brood.

Treatment
Depending on the stage of the disorder, preventive treatments may have some efficacy in reducing the disorder's progress. For later stage RHD, however, there may be no recourse except to isolate the sufferer, remove her internet access, and ban her from all conventions or conferences.

The more advanced the RHD, the more chance a sufferer may introduce the disorder to a new genre; there are preliminary signs RHD, or a variant, may have appeared in the religious sub-genre of historical fiction. For this reason, many scientists argue against genre-switching; a negative impact on unrelated genres is too high a risk, given the existing questions about RHD's pathology. In the disorder's final stages, the only treatment may be to end all authorship; this is the only proven cure.

Sadly, pointing and laughing hysterically does not have any effect on RHD once it has passed into its final stage. However, this behavior is efficacious for fans and fellow writers dealing with annoyance in the wake of the disorder's active cycle.

References
[1] Some scientists argue RHD is possible in men, but surfaces in the medical thriller genre instead.
[2] There is some question whether this definition should be expanded to 'anti-fandom', which would include fan-art.

See Also
Crichton Penii Competition Disorder (CPCD)
Ellison Obsessive-Mammarive Disorder (EOMD)

---

Why, yes, as a matter of fact, I do crack myself up.

Comments

[difrancis.livejournal.com]

Giggling a lot . . . but makes me wonder if Harlan Ellison's syndrome is a branch of this disease, or what?

And I want a definition of CPCS. Really. Want.

Di

[difrancis.livejournal.com]

EOMD---Snarf!!!!!

[tharain.livejournal.com]

Oh, and you crack ME up, too!

EXCELLENT!

::poke, poke::

::SCREECH SCREECH::

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

Come on, someone had to write it! It was just WAITING to be written -- first Rice, then Hamilton, who's next? *fears for the genre*

[roseya19.livejournal.com]

This is... I'm sorry, laughing hysterically here. Ditto the desire for you to expound on CPCS--though I've got some pretty weird visuals running through my head right now.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

I have no idea how I'd do one for CPCS, though it does seem to be more common -- see 's comment below. Clearly someone needs to do a companion wiki entry!

(Though that's something for more serious ponderings, what's going on with the mindset for some authors. There are plenty of stories of authors of both genders, and all genres, reacting quite pettily to critical professional reviews. It's not so common for authors to just launch outright rant-level, illogical, lengthy attacks on their own fans; that seems to be the arena predominantly of female writers. Or have men done it but not nearly as noisily? Or just not as publically? Curious.)

[ravensilver.livejournal.com]

Thank the Gods that I have my own office in the house. So no one wonders whether I've finally gone *totally* off my rocker for sitting here in tears and laughing hysterically.

I actually bought most of the LKH books, because I liked the first few. But just yesterday I caught myself actually contemplating donating them to the local library...

Thank you for brightening my day. ^^

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

I'm just here for the comic relief, ma'am!

*salutes*

[kythiaranos.livejournal.com]

You crack me up, too. That was awesome!

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

*bows*

[annotated_em]

*giggling very quietly in her cube* You crack me up, too. *applause*

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

My work here is done!

[maldoror-gw.livejournal.com]

*laughs hysterically*

'Risk-taking behaviors; acts out by poking crazy screechy monkeys with a stick'

*laughs some more*

'Rewrite vampires as bloodthirsty, unsexy, vicious rabid dogs too busy killing things to brood.'

Oh yes, PLEASE. It's strange how it seems associated with vampires...maybe a vampire plot out there.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

I'm having visions of vampires collecting money via paypal to bribe agents and publishers into continuing pro-sympathetic-vampire fiction as part of some PR scheme. Sort of like the Neocons paying entertainment figures to spout pro-neocon idiocy... actually, that would be a great deal like it, come to think of it. I'll leave any extension of the 'blood-sucking undead fiend' analogy to your imagination.

*dances around*

[sans-pertinence.livejournal.com]

*dies laughing* Oh, Jesus, you've finally killed me. The 'See Also' bit is what really did me in.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

Woot! I killed Ravengirl!

I'm such a bastard!



[hehehe]

[aulus-poliutos.livejournal.com]

There is a male variant, the Grass-Walser Syndrome. It afflicts male writers of Literature with a capital L and is fought in newpapers and journals rather than on the net. Men tend to be more single-minded and thus they pick on specific reviewers who dared to say something else than enthusiastic praise about the authors' great masterworks of Literature, and kill them off in their next books, or make them psychotic characters in dire need of a straigh jacket. In bad cases they even try to damage the reputation of a reviewer in RL.

A possible cure: don't give those authors any more Literature Prizes and Praise, and try to find the dead bodies in their cellars.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

Hmm, you may be onto something here. I wonder if that's a variant of the Crichton syndrome; often such things are discovered (and named) separately in various countries/cultures, and only determined to be the same thing after some length of time.

We definitely need someone to write the additional wiki entries for the 'milder' forms of authorial egotistical disorders, or perhaps arrange them by genre? CCPS and Grass-Wassler are likely unrelated to genre, and, IIRC, probably unrelated to genre. They could strike! Anyone! At any time! Clearly a previously-unidentified epidemic; next thing you know, they'll be prescribing Reviewex to any author with opposable thumbs. It'll be the biggest drug issue since Prozac Nation!

*panics, runs around in circles*

[tiercel]

BWAHAHAHAHA

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

*strikes a pose*

[chibidrunksanzo.livejournal.com]

ME LOVE YOU LONG TIME!! XD

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

Woot!

[mikkeneko.livejournal.com]

Sorry I didn't answer so long -- was running around doing chore-type stuffs! Basically, I'm only going to be around for all of today and all of tomorrow. ;_; But I have no more appointments and no more chores, so I can drop by to visit (or vice versa, if you want to meet the dog again) anytime!

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

sent you email!

[kraehe.livejournal.com]

Needs to be on Uncyclopedia. Seriously. (http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Main_Page)

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

*makes note*

I went & looked but don't have braincells for that right now. Idea, though. Hehehehe.

Especially then it'd be a place to put all these other disorders people've been pointing out...

[pixiepilot.livejournal.com]

*SNERF*

Ahem. Yes, very good. Add it to the records. Catching these sort of terminal illnesses early is very important. ^_^

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

Yeah, like writing an author in the genre post-third-book, with big signs that say, DON'T DO IT!!!

Gives 'just say no' a new meaning. Hrmph.

[stacia-kane.livejournal.com]

Oh, my...this is one of the best things I've read in a while...mind if I pass your link around?

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

Go right ahead! I had a ball writing it, to be honest.

Although, also, I should mention that the reason I said I crack myself up is because comedy really is damn hard. When I thought I was being witty and amusing, my second reaction was: am I the only one? Maybe I'm the only one amusing myself... so it's always nice to hear others find it just as amusing.

Besides, it's not like the source material (behavior?) doesn't just cry out for commentary. I mean, seriously! (So to speak.)

[maeglinyedi.livejournal.com]

Came here through a comm. Brilliant! This made me giggle. A lot. :-)

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

Also: what-hey, a comm? It does seem to be working its way around, which tickles me to no end.

(That, and from the comments threads, it appears to be that this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Strange and Hilarious Author Neuroses. I mean, really!)

[thekiwiwhoflew.livejournal.com]

Goddamn you, lj.)

(I followed here from LKH_Lashouts, and lady you owe me a new monitor after mine got pepsi sprayed all over it-- And out my nose, man. I'm going to be using the term Rice-Hamilton disorder all the time now, thankyouverymuch.)

[1] Some scientists argue RHD is possible in men, but surfaces in the medical thriller genre instead.

I believe you are a bit mixed up there. Male RHD is commonly mistaken for a case of S.King Syndrome, most commonly found among males in the Contemporary Horror genre. While patients seem to continue being skillfull in their prose as opposed to those suffering from RHD, patients diagnosed with SKS suffer from an inflated head, excessive self love, hatred of everything that is not written by them or is more successful than their current works are, and an obnoxious mouth. Symptoms can be slow, showing themselves only after years of success- But they are there, giving way to a slow but progressive ostracism of the general public, loss of profit, online jokes, funny macros and Erectile Dysfunction.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

*puffs on pipe, adjust wire-rim glasses, attempts to look sage*

Ah, so effectively the fantasy/horror female version is to attack the fans, while the male version is to attack other authors? Dude, there are neurotic behaviors coming out of the woodwork! Someone should write a book! Err...

[Actually, snark aside, it does make me wonder sometimes about the cultural expectations we put on people who are -- in a strange way -- in the public eye, and the role gender plays in how they're able to/allowed to act out their neuroses.]

You Forgot One

[(Anonymous)]

In the male category. It is Brown's disease, and it is much more dangerous than the bickering and petty bitching of Rice-Hamilton. When a male author gets Brown's disease, he suddenly loses all ability to characterise. His plots lose coherency, his syntax gets the trots and his storylines become far-fetched and ridiculous.

It is a dangerous, dangerous disease because it is highly contagious. People all over the world become victims of Brown's disease, which renders them temporarily blind, and therefore especially susceptible to further Plot Atrocities from said Brown's disease sufferer.

Overnight, they feel like they are historical experts, and the word "Fiction" is erased from their memories. They walk around pronouncing truth, citing evidence that does not prove them right, only that there were people in the Renaissance period who made up the story first.

It is a sad,sad thing, and many have fallen victim.

The only cure that has so far rescued those few, poor souls that could be, was a really bad movie,with some really good actors, who were so obviously crippled by the dialogue they could not act.

It is the only cure.

Maybe it will work on Rice-Hamilton?

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

When a male author gets Brown's disease, he suddenly loses all ability to characterise. His plots lose coherency, his syntax gets the trots and his storylines become far-fetched and ridiculous.

That's not a disorder. That's a congential defect!

*snerk*

Wish I had a camera the day a coworker informed in, in all seriousness, that I should read DaVinci Code (I am so sick of getting that as a rec); she went on to talk about how he did all this research and even got permission to get into the Vatican library!

Me: Anyone can do that.
Coworker: No, they can't. It's the Vatican library.
Me: Right. And it's been open to the public since it was created by Pope Nicholas, in 1451.
Coworker: ...
Me: Of course, it lagged from the 1460s until about 1494, when Pope Alexander -- the Borgia Pope -- donated a bunch of books, money, and appointed someone to be the librarian, but the entire point was that anyone could go see what's there. Still can.
Coworker: But...
Me: You can't take the books out, of course, not since the mid-1600s, and some books have always remained on the premises.
Coworker: But Dan Brown...
Me: Even the Inculabula and non-printed material are still each 'signed out' and brought to the reading room, to be returned at the end of the library's hours. You can see Galileo's signatures on some of them. And they have a list of people who checked out stuff and had to pay a fine for not bringing it back on time. Apparently Augustine was very bad at returning books on time.
Coworker: But you still have to get permission if you're not Catholic...
Me: Nope. You just go in. Like any other library.
Coworker: But...
Me: Except I think they make you wash your hands, or wear gloves, if you want to see really old stuff.

At which point the coworker stumbled off looking utterly flabbergasted.

Sometimes I feel like I need to come up with a catchy t-shirt that says something like, "don't try to get me to read Dan Brown by impressing me with his fabulous research."

*rolls eyes*

[jessicaqueen.livejournal.com]

Rewrite vampires as bloodthirsty, unsexy, vicious rabid dogs too busy killing things to brood.

Use this solution with caution, or prepare to evolve into the BtVS universe. Symptoms include writing a cast of vampires that start off as entirely evil, bloodthirty villians, but somehow become misunderstood sex symbols who cry and bitch a lot long before the end of the series is reached. Warning: This has been known lead to even more excessive vampire angsting than even RHD, though scientists are presently debating whether this is actually possible.

*Grin* Thanks a bunch for sharing this, it was hilarious.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

Hrm, it's harder to diagnose disorders for television authors; that might be less of a disorder and more of some kind of hysteria -- like mob hysteria.

Fury-Noxon Oppositional Disorder or something, where neither has a clue about the creator's vision, neither likes the other's position, and between them both, they twist it all out of shape. I have heard of this sort of thing happening on a number of other series in later seasons (when the primary author/creator steps away or down). Maybe there's something going on there...

Symptoms include writing a cast of vampires that start off as entirely evil, bloodthirty villians, but somehow become misunderstood sex symbols who cry and bitch a lot long before the end of the series is reached.

Except that perhaps Fury-Noxon disorder is where you start out with perfectly good blood-thirsty antagonists, and then mutate them into the RHD form of wangsting misunderstood soul mates...

[auntie-maim.livejournal.com]

In the male author category, I would suggest that Brian Lumley might also have RHD, though to a somewhat lesser degree. While his vampire novels weren't nearly as wanky, he does exhibit quite a few of the characterisitics.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

*sighs dramatically*

I feel so bad for these AED sufferers. They should get together and form some kind of support group. Y'know, like the fandom has to, just to deal with them.

*snerk*

[putana.livejournal.com]

Brilliant. Just brilliant! *claps*

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

*bows*

thank you! I'll be here all week! Try the veal! ;-)

[fer-de-lance.livejournal.com]

HA!

Oh, that's perfect. Pathology, indeed! ((dies laughing) It's so true! At least it's not contagious... that we know of, anyway. Maybe there's a genetic predisposition? If you have the RHD-potential gene, and read broody vampire novels within a certain critical period (early- to mid-adolescence?), the gene activates, and your risk factor rises. Or maybe there's just a Broody Vampire Writing (BVW) Potential gene, which would increase the risk of RHD merely by association?

Brilliant snark, definitely. :D


Crichton Penii Competition Disorder (CPCD)

If that second word is supposed to be a Latin version of "penises," then the word you're wanting is penes. Only words ending in -us take an i plural; and only words ending in -ius would become ii!

Erm. Not that I spend a lot of time contemplating the Latin plurals of genitals, of course. ((coughcough)) :D

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

I failed latin, but I did know that only -ius gets -ii. Though I wasn't sure what "penis" would get instead, I thought about it and decided that "penii" just looked bizarre, and thus it pleased me. ;-)

Hrm, I wonder if the Broody Vampire Genetic link might also be complicated by early exposure to excessive amounts of classical gothic, such as Wuthering Heights? Maybe that's why I find myself impervious. Never did read that one...

[no-ron.livejournal.com]

:))))))
that was priceless.. :p

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

Ehehehe.

*bows with flourish*

[innerslytherin]

Followed many links to get here, and just wanted to let you know that, having given up on Rice years ago and never having succumbed to Hamilton, I still find this extremely entertaining.

[ravenclaw-devi.livejournal.com]

Too true!