My time in the writers’ group I helped found in 2020, and started in April 2021, came to an end, but not a sad farewell, in November 2025.

I left the writers’ group I helped found for the sake of my sanity.

The behaviour I experienced towards the end was the catalyst for leaving. The thought process—who doesn’t love a good thought process?—I’d had in the two weeks between meetings revealed a lot to me.

The group meeting revealed more. Not only did it reveal there was no respect for the founding member, the leader, the knowledge bank, and the person who ran the group, but they showed themselves for the narcissists they were.

Narcissists are the embodiment of Jekyll and Hyde. On the surface, nice and friendly, but when they’re pulled up on their behaviour the façade is shattered and you see the monster claw its way out from underneath.

What I saw at my last meeting was incredibly eye opening. Four Dr Jekyll’s walked into the room, and four Mr Hydes walked out of it.

Narcissists love to play the victim while blaming the victim, attacking you, and throwing everything they know about you—like your experience as a carer is fodder for blame—back in your face as some kind of gotchya.

Narcissists are selfish and self-centred and have no problem lying about themselves to make themselves look good and feel big, all the while lying about you to make you look bad and feel worse. Except it didn’t work, because I didn’t look or feel either.

Narcissists lack awareness. Personal and social. They lack awareness of the bigger picture. That their behaviour could create serious issues moving forward for everyone around them. Because they don’t care. All proving their true nature and your point. That you’ve been treated badly. And they proved my point, believe me.

They also suffer from the DARVO effect, and it’s pretty easy to recognise.

D – Deny

A – Attack

RV – Reverse Victim

O – Offender

It’s a reaction perpetrators display in response to being held accountable for their behaviour.

It suits them perfectly since they are narcissists.

They denied their actions (I did no such thing; how dare you say that), then attacked me for it (you don’t control me or anyone else at this table; you can’t tell us what to do, we’ll do and say what we want), played the victim (cried and invoked her dead daughter’s name), and then made me the offender by blaming me again (the problems started with your book; you shouldn’t stew on this shit you should’ve called me and spoken to me).

My sanity is more important than another’s insanity. Than the mockery and shitty remarks I received for what I did and how much I do.

I’d known for some time no one gave a flying fuck about suggestions I made concerning other authors. They weren’t interested in the field of writing, only what they were writing. Or in some cases, not writing as some weren’t actually doing much of anything. They didn’t want to watch docos about authors, or read books on authors; some of them only wanted to read the books they could get something out of. Others didn’t bother reading at all. Most gave no fucks about refreshing their spelling, punctuation, and grammar, or reading books about writing and publishing. No one gave a flying fuck about bringing ideas to the table to change things up, but expected me to do all the fucking work, run the fucking group at the table, lead it through the check-in and Q&A section, bring topics to talk about, answer all the fucking questions, and still come up with a 2026 schedule for the group.

FUCK. RIGHT. OFF!

Every time I asked if there was something they wanted to talk about, they’d shrug their shoulders or shake their head. Every time I talked about a book I’d read, or doco I’d watched on Kanopy, or a course I’d done on LinkedIn Learning, they didn’t care. Over the head, in one ear and out the other.

Trying to get those people to do anything else was like pulling fucking teeth. So, it had been building. Egos did what they wanted. Sucked me dry of all of my energy and knowledge while blaming the person they treated badly. Me. And I knew in 2025 there was something draining my energy but could never put my finger on it. I always put it down to “it’s just a long day out”. But in writing this essay, I’m wondering if someone had put a hex, or some bad juju on me. There was something draining me more than usual. Maybe there were thoughts and feelings of jealousy they put into a voodoo doll, because believe me, you don’t mock someone for what, and how much, they do unless you’re jealous because you do nothing. It was something I couldn’t sense, but still drained me to depletion.

I knew the last member was coming out from behind his façade. Saw he was becoming louder, more boisterous, more obnoxious, had become the main problem of the group. He wasn’t as nice as he’d led us to believe. He wasn’t the victim he needed us to believe he was. It was a vibe, silent and sneaky and it attached itself to me in the latter part of the year.

It’s funny how narcissists reveal themselves in the words they use against you, behaving exactly how they claim they won’t let you treat them. Like a five-year-old brat, while behaving like a five-year-old-brat.

Loud, narcissistic personalities always do themselves in and give themselves away. Always tell you exactly who they are and show the truth under the façade, which is always the opposite of the image they’ve carefully constructed to show the world. These are people you don’t want to deal with.

And if the behaviour of the newest member is anything to go by, bye-bye new female members. He doesn’t care if you can’t take the heat of the group or are too weak to deal with it.

Misogyny, disrespect, if you can handle it, go ahead. If you know you are better than that and that type of person, stay away. For the sake of your sanity.

And sadly, I always gave ten thousand percent and barely received a hundred in return.

Here’s the full story, which I wrote at the end of November, prepping for this blog post, and getting it all out of my head for a fresh start in December. But even as I schedule this post in January, I’ve added thousands of words because there is so much to tell and it doesn’t stop.

On October 30, 2025, something happened in the writers’ group that was the catalyst for what happened next.

The behaviour of other members had been pretty good until we moved into the IT Suite. But the loud personalities stopped containing themselves and became louder, while still reasonably behaved.

One fed off the other, attached herself to him as she sat closer and closer, and became louder to the point she was way too physically comfortable with him.

But they were still reasonably behaved.

During our check-in, we go around the table and talk about what we’ve done in the last fortnight, everyone was respectful, and behaviour was reasonable. The two new visitors (I call them this because rarely did visitors turn into members) gave us a brief description of what they were doing with their writing.

As the person leading the group, I was always the last to give everyone a chance to talk. When it came to me and my check-in, I was spoken over, spoken for, explained, and mocked.

I had been mocked before, every October when I talked about prepping my next year’s writing to-do list, or talking about getting my planner and calendar ready.

The usual “of course you have”, or its cousin “of course you did”, always came from the same person in an exhaustive sigh. I’m calling her OB, moving forward.

I copped it in October, like I knew I would. Although it had been coming at other times in 2025. When I talked about being ahead of myself, the exhaustive sigh of a comment was often accompanied by an overdramatic attention-seeking eye roll, and a gaping mouth. All complete clownish behaviour. And ironically, she knew exactly why I prepped early, because we’d had the conversations the two years before.

It was the first time I was mocked that night. OB immediately turned to the new girl on her left and said something to her, but I have no idea what was said because I couldn’t hear her.

When everyone had shut up long enough, I continued.

The next round of mocking came from the whole group when I said, “I don’t think I’ll be writing another book this year”. The cacophony of mockery hit me like a brick wall, and with a loud male voice either side of me, the triangulation of male sound created a barrier that did not allow me to hear beyond it, so I had no idea what anyone had said.

Why the fuck would you mock someone for prepping ahead of time? Why would you mock someone who doesn’t think they’ll write anything else in a year? Why are you such a small person you feel the need to pull others down because you can’t be bothered doing jack-fucking-shit with your own work? It’s pathetic, petty, and downright fucking infantile. You’re not in high school, dickheads, and most of you are fucking older than me. It can only be jealousy. Jealous they can’t go at the pace I do. Jealous they haven’t had the success I’ve had. Jealous they haven’t made the money I have. Petty, pathetic jealousy from grown adults who can’t support and cheer on the person who has done nothing but support and cheer them on for the entire time they’ve been in the fucking group.

Jealousy makes people stupid, and it’s absolutely fucking pathetic.

Once they had shut up long enough, I continued.

Not long after the check-in, the male visitor, whom I’m calling CF, asked me what book I wrote or had written.

I made a reluctant, but amused sound because it’s becoming harder to explain to people everything I do. Before I could answer, everyone else answered for me, explaining me, starting with the loud-mouthed male, I’m calling him BB, to my left. “Tiara writes porn.” For reference, I wrote a series I called Porn Star Brothers, but it’s a family saga, not porn. And I write adult romances, not porn. Think Jackie Collins style adult fiction.

The conversation continued with CF asking some nonsense, but my hearing had tuned out.

The other bad behaviour came from a long-time member I’m calling AH, who thought they could get between OB and BB, and wallop BB on the shoulder because he wasn’t listening to her and joking with me. She was clearly desperate for his attention, and clearly didn’t want his attention on another female. Being desperately needy for attention is a sign jealousy will follow.

Myself, OB, and a member I’m calling II, all went whoa. OB looked at me, I looked at II, and she looked at the female visitor and said, “AH doesn’t normally go around hitting people, we’re not normally like this”.

We continued, things calmed slightly, and then we finished up for the night and went home.

It took a day or two for my brain to decompress and remember most of what was said and done. And I realised how damaging “Tiara writes porn” actually is to me as a writer, founding member, and the person who was supposed to be running the group. It was also damaging to the group itself, as it could turn people off from coming back. Of which, sadly, I believe our behaviour had multiple times.

I vented on our Facebook group I had set up in 2024 about what BB said about me, and OB suggested getting back to writing stints because when she’d been in the group (after taking much of the year off, either travelling, dealing with issues, or being sick), there was too much man-bashing going on.

That can’t be helped when we have a domestic violence problem in this country, and men kill women all around the world daily. Some men are cunts who need to be removed permanently from society. When there are only three members, half our regulars, we end up talking about world events because they don’t want to discuss their writing, or have nothing to say about it. So, we talk about other things.

But I digress.

I remembered I had taken over the running of the group a couple of years previously and called a general meeting on our FB group, saying the meeting had been a shit show of bad behaviour, and I was going to make new rules, readdress old ones, and pull people up on their behaviour.

I thought about nothing else for the next week, re-wrote my paperwork I was going to read out, and tried to keep the notes to the behaviour I personally experienced, and was going to warn everyone to keep their hands to themselves because it could get them, or the group, thrown out of the library.

I was there before everyone else, tried to breathe through my nerves as I’d never had to do this before, and then four of them walked in as a group, in formation. BB walked in ahead, eagerly looking into the suite as he approached and saw the other people using the room. OB and AH were side by side, like two scared women in fear of a woman younger than themselves. They were clearly freaking out. I had dared to call a general meeting. Little old me, who had no say or power was daring to pull them up on the behaviour I hadn’t even mentioned. How utterly pathetic. Two grown adult women older than myself, were so scared of what was about to happen, they needed a big beefy man to walk ahead of them. Another male I’ll call MD, followed up the rear.

I knew exactly what had happened. They had met and talked outside before coming in, and it told me what was going to come. I almost laughed, but let the other people in the room know we were about to have a meeting, and they packed up and left. The four members of the group ignored me, sat down, and chatted amongst themselves.

CF, from the previous meeting, came in right after them, and as he sat, I said, “Just so you know, I’ve called a general meeting on our Facebook group to discuss the behaviour from the last meeting.”

He mumbled something I don’t remember, and then OB tried to pre-empt me by jumping in with her narrative first.

I stopped her, laid my hand on my notes, and told her I was going to say what I had to say and everyone was going to listen, because I was fucking pissed off at the way I’d been treated and said so. Was it the best way to approach things? Probably not, but it happened the way it did, and I don’t regret any of it because I saw so much and had many thoughts confirmed.

Now, I never mentioned OB and her behaviour towards me. Not in the FB vent, not there in the meeting, but she outed herself by trying to get ahead of the game. When someone is trying to pull a person or group up on their behaviour, and a person tries to pre-empt the conversation by trying to get in first, that’s them outing themselves.

Guilty people out themselves. Non-guilty people don’t.

We argued for a few seconds before her phone rang, and she took it outside the IT suite.

CF then lied about me to my face, which is something that pisses me off even more. “Well, if you hadn’t come in here going fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.”

I said, “I didn’t.”

AH said, “You did.”

How…exactly, did I come in doing that when I was already there before them and my first words had been to CF about the general meeting?

How did I come in saying fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck when I was already there, and once the argument started, all I said was I was fucking pissed off at the way I’d been treated and wasn’t going to tolerate it anymore?

Fuck, narcissists have no problem lying. Lying about me tells me exactly the type of person you are. They also lack observational skills. And because they don’t observe others, they don’t understand how others react, or why, or that others observe them. And believe me, I did. I’m the quiet observer. I saw through them. I heard their verbal language and saw the body language that came with it, and saw and heard the underlying truth to both.

II came in, and then OB came back. She had obviously decided to leave before coming back into the room as she grabbed her bag and said, “I can’t deal with this right now,” something, something, “I don’t know what it is you think I’ve done, Tiara.”

That comment gave her away again, because I still hadn’t mentioned her or what she’d done. But I said, maybe stupidly, “You mocked me.”

Her voice grew high, and the next second we’re arguing as she denied it. BB started arguing with me from the other end of the table, so I’m arguing with both of them before she walks out. AH claws at her, reaching for her, begging her to stay, being desperately needy.

She leaves, and then BB decided to bellow at me, berate me, thrust his fingers and hands at me, and behave so badly he’s lucky the security guard didn’t stick his head in the door. But the staff at the front desk did hear it and reported it to the library manager, and the librarian in charge of the group.

He told me, and I quote, “Just because you can’t control your mother at home doesn’t mean you can come here and control me. You can’t. You don’t control me or anyone else in this group.”

My gaze was on my paperwork, and my eyebrows rose to my hairline. I nearly burst out laughing. Besides the fact it was so goddamn stupid, he had no idea what he’d done. No idea of the damage he was doing to the group and the hole he was digging for himself and the group.

He continued with all sorts of bullshit, thrusting his hands and forefingers at me, the door, everywhere. “You can’t tell us what to say and do in this room; we’ll do what we like. From the conversations we’ve had, you clearly hate men.” He’d been there a year and the only thing he had to throw in my face was from the few conversations we’d had in the meetings outside of writing. I think there was something about me being a man-hater or a man-hating lesbian. And then came this gold. It was something along the lines of, “You’re not going to treat me like a five-year-old brat.”

Interesting choice of words. And I realised a day or two later, this douche of an overgrown brat was projecting and behaving exactly how he didn’t want to be treated. Like a five-year-old brat. His mother must have said that to him. He’s her carer, and controls her drinking Friday through Sunday. And yes, he told us that.

Projection city!

CF was a broken record for the hour and a half he was there. “Who cares, who cares, I just want to talk about my writing. Who cares, who cares?” He must have said it hundreds of times and it was so fucking annoying.

This dude behaved like a whiny five-year-old brat who wanted control of the group. Selfishness abounded; he wanted to talk about his writing and not what was going on around him. He lacked the awareness of a group needing to deal with issues.

Once MD calmed things down, he, BB and AH all started in on me. Dictating, controlling (which was rich considering BB had just told me I didn’t control them, yet here they were trying to control me), being condescending, patronising, telling me how I should have approached things, what I should’ve said and done, yada, yada, fucking yada. For a moment there, it was like dealing with my family, so I knew exactly what to do.

But I was already done. My brain kept saying, “Just play along, don’t let them know you’re done.”

I played along.

I argued a bit more, managed to read out my two pages of rules, most of which were basic for a writers’ group, but they were vetoed by MD, AH, and II. I dealt with AH, who invoked her dead daughter’s name in saying she doesn’t like confrontations and refuses to have them and walks away, only to tell me half an hour later when someone says or does something she doesn’t like, she pulls them up and nips it in the bud right there and then, and I should do the same.

I sat there thinking, you liar. People who hate confrontations don’t pull people up and nip shit in the bud. Also, my brain doesn’t work that way. I like to decompress first so I can work through things.

At one point during this bullshit, BB decided to tell me I shouldn’t stew on this shit and bring it to the group. I should have pulled him up on it right away and dealt with it, not waited two weeks.

I told him, “It happened in the group, so I’m dealing with it in the group.”

They were not bright, educated, or aware of the world going on around them, especially the writing world. BB was thicker than a brick shithouse, and I had to deal with similar crap for four years.

He also admitted he hadn’t been on Facebook for two months, and I said, “So how was I supposed to contact you to deal with it?” Again, not bright.

He said I could have done it at the time, or I could have called him to talk about it.

Fuck’s sake! I don’t want your fucking phone number, that’s not what I’m there for. I’m there to talk about writing and publishing, not make BFFs.

Eventually, MD finally got out of me what the problem had been; I explained most of it, the way I was treated during my check-in was the most disgusting behaviour I’ve ever experienced in the group and I wasn’t going to tolerate it again.

And then the crawling up my backside started. Or maybe they realised I was right and they’d behaved badly after I spoke. Their body language showed it. I can only surmise they finally realised something might happen if they didn’t suddenly change their tune and suck up. Why would you disrespect and then suck up unless you think you’re going to lose the one thing pulling away?

AH then started the crawling. “I respect the heck out of you; you’ve taught me so much since I’ve been here. I didn’t know anything…blahdy, blahdy, blah.”

BB followed in her path. “Yeah, I wouldn’t know publishing was possible without you, or what all of the different edits were…blahdy, blahdy, blah.”

“And yet there are times I feel incredibly disrespected,” I replied, thinking, you can’t respect me that much considering how you’ve treated me for an hour. And where was your respect for me while I was being bellowed at? Not one person stopped him. Not one person told him not to speak for them. Not one person told him not to speak to me that way. I sat there in silent hysterics letting him dig the hole.

Meanwhile, CF was still whining like a five-year-old brat, and at one point, thrust up out of his chair, slammed his folio down on the table, whined, “I just came here to talk about my writing, if I’m not going to do that, I’m going home.”

He walked around me and headed for the door, but AH clawed at him too—still very needy for some reason—and made him stay.

I’m sitting there thinking, let him go, he just threw a tantrum.

He sat back down and stayed. But at 6:30, he chose to leave, shook my left shoulder as he walked behind me, made some snarky-arse comment about me, pointing his finger at me and making stupid snarky noises as he walked out the door. Misogynistic cunt!

By that time, I had been making notes for half an hour on what the group could do in 2026, as MD had made all the suggestions. The others were silent, as usual. “Oh, we could do this, and this, and that, and get authors in, and have Zoom meetings with people.”

Like I was going to do all of that! Fuck, how exhausting!

And like you didn’t already have a fucking author in the group you sucked dry on a fortnightly basis, and half of you aren’t even writing or wanting to publish, so what would be the point in getting other authors in? To teach you what? Something different to what you learned from me? It won’t be much. If you’re not writing, or publishing, or even turning up to the meeting, why bother wanting other authors in? Why bother wanting zoom meetings? It would be a complete waste of time for them if half the members aren’t even there. Jesus, these people really don’t think things through.

By then, I’d decided I wasn’t coming back for the last meeting of the year, November 27th, and in the last twenty-five minutes, they kept pushing me to talk about things and what had happened. I knew by then there was no point, I wouldn’t be back. And telling them wouldn’t change anything, it would just start them up again with telling me what to do and how to feel and behave.

Hell, they didn’t want to be told to keep their hands to themselves and stop hitting each other—behaviour that could get the group thrown out of the library—but they had no problem trying to control my behaviour. Fucking hypocrites.

At one point, AH actually blamed all of this on my book, Madam X. “Oh, I think all of it started when you wrote Madam X.” It was clear she wasn’t confident in saying it, or even sure she should. But she did.

I was looking at her at the time and thought, this shit’s been happening since 2023. And why the fuck are you blaming my book?

That’s one more thing to NEVER do to an author in a writers’ group. NEVER blame their book, or its topic, for issues in the group. They’re entitled to write about what they want without the risk of some airhead blaming it for the problems that arise amongst members.

What an arrogant, narcissistic, egotistical, ignorant, fucking gall. What a low down dirty thing to do to an author. Blame their book for the problems in a group and other people CHOOSING to behave badly. Goddamn! Even the library manager was shocked when I told her.

Three times they tried to get the problem out of me and I kept saying, “I’ll sit with my thoughts and think things through.”

AH asked on the third time, “Thoughts about us?” and waved her finger between her and BB.

How narcissistic and self-absorbed. But yeah, bitch, about the two of you.

I responded by saying, “No, about what I’m doing.” I was fucking annoyed and done, and wanted to get the fuck away from them. And my thoughts were about what I was going to do. I knew I wasn’t going back. I knew I had to sort out what it meant for me moving forward, and had to get it out of my system. Hence this essay.

We wrapped up for the night, and the minute the last four were out the door, I thought, yeah, I’m done, and quit on the spot.

A lot more was said and done during those two hours. Things I don’t remember clearly, or don’t remember at all. But one thing I do know is this, they had no problem sucking the knowledge bank dry like greedy piglets always wanting food. They had no problem with me running the group at the table through the check-in and Q&A section, or giving them, or visitors, my knowledge, and finding more when they couldn’t be fucked helping themselves, and had no problem with me setting up a schedule for the new year. They also had no fucking clue their behaviour would drive me away, and it would lead to losing their biggest asset.

And that’s not me bragging. It was true on every level. I was the most written, most published, most experienced, most knowledgeable person in the group who knew more about writing and publishing than every other member and visitor the group had ever had combined. Even OB. She’d only published one book, used a company to get it out, and was barely writing at the time.

I knew more because I was constantly reading, learning, watching, and educating myself. I had done more as a multi-name author and multi-style writer who self-published, was the founding member, the person who led the group, and run the group. But, oh no, when I wanted to pull them up on their behaviour and make rules, they bucked against it and thought they could put me in my place.

They thought they could control me. But I’m the only one who controls me, and I was the one in control. I had all of the control. Control over what would happen to the group, by having control over filing a complaint with the library manager. I had all of the control over the knowledge bank because that’s in my brain, so I had the control to leave and take everything with me.

MD admitted during the times he spoke, as he spoke the most, the burden had fallen on my shoulders, and maybe they could start pulling their weight and coming up with ideas (something I had already suggested as a part of my rules). I was the person they all turned to when someone asked a question, and I must go home exhausted.

Yeah, I fucking did, because you lot did jack-fucking-shit for yourselves or the group, and I was the one answering all the fucking writing and publishing questions. From you and visitors. I was so mentally depleted, the next morning I could barely drag myself out of bed. My brain didn’t want to get up and do the housework, which is what Fridays are for, and it would always take several days for me to get my energy back, which is why I started reading on Saturdays and Sundays instead.

It was the same old lethargic energy in the group year after year. It only sparked up when visitors came along, but once they got what they wanted and left, it dropped back to the same old same old. Dead air. No energy.

When you don’t have members immersing themselves in the field of writing so they know what others are talking about, they are of no use to anyone. Even themselves.

Once the group was over and they were gone, I stayed there and spent twenty minutes purging thoughts out of my head onto three pages of paper before I left the library. No doubt they had talked about it as they left, and two of them were on the main path across the road to the shopping centre, not far from my car. I walked past them and said nothing. They said nothing, and I thought about it all the way home.

I thought about it at my desk until 2:30 the next morning, knowing if I didn’t purge my brain of all thoughts, I wouldn’t be sleeping, as I hadn’t the fortnight before when this debacle started.

I slept straight through till 8:30, and when I opened my eyes, it was the first thing I thought of. I thought about it all day as I did the housework and wrapped up my social media stuff for the week. As I purged more thoughts from my brain.

I knew I was done. I had quit, and I wasn’t going back. It felt right. It felt good. I was good with the knowledge my time with the group had come to an end, and knew they would have no idea what the fuck would hit them when they found out. While a small piece of my ego had been clinging to the fact I was the founding member, and had been there the longest, only missing three meetings, after all of their behaviour, it didn’t matter anymore. My self-respect had all of the control and mattered more than a little piece of ego.

The next Thursday, I asked two librarians, who have known me for decades, who do I talk to? They suggested someone, and the following Wednesday I headed to the library to talk to her. I only told her half of what had happened, as we didn’t have long, regardless of my having notes and having rehearsed it for a week. But she said she and the librarian who used to run the group would stop by and chat to them.

I told her to tell them I’d quit because I wasn’t going to tolerate that behaviour. She said she would.

I have no idea what happened. I wasn’t there, but I wish I’d been a fly on the wall. I had come up with a lot of sayings and phrases the day after my last meeting during my thinkfest, and I turned them into social media posts. I published many of them to my socials at 5pm when the group was starting.

I do know AH wasn’t there, and wasn’t going to be until March this year. What a cop out. She probably went home and cried to her husband, played the victim, and told him how mean I was. Although she probably hadn’t told him she’d walloped BB on the shoulder because he was paying attention to me and not her, because she’s become overly personal and physical with him. I did close our FB group down during the meeting. Removed everyone, deleted posts, and at 7pm, when it would have finished, I made the group hidden. I had set it up, I owned it. It was one more thing I had control over.

For me, it was the end of a four-and-a-half-year era. An incredibly exhausting one. But I felt better for it. I knew I was going to get energy back and be more productive. As if writing one book, re-writing another, releasing those two along with five other books, a short story, and a guide in 2025 hadn’t been productive enough.

I had known from the first night in 2021 I wouldn’t get what I needed out of the group. I had somewhat made peace with it, so steered it towards where I wanted it to go, and as more people came along, I had more people to talk to about publishing.

In 2023, it became pretty obvious I was the go-to knowledge bank at everyone’s disposal for them to suck all of the answers out of me. It came down to me to tell everyone about publishing, and in 2024, I made the personal choice not do it anymore. We were technically a writing group, not a publishing group, and my energy was waning from giving away so much information to people who didn’t join in return.

So, to the last members of the group, your three years of behaviour, and the final two meetings of worse behaviour showed such disrespect for your founding member, and the person leading the group, her self-respect quit.

You’ve lost your knowledge bank. Your biggest and best asset. Something most companies revere. They treat their assets with respect because they know they deserve it. Yet it didn’t even occur to you you would lose yours. You thought your asset would keep on tolerating your bullshit and bad behaviour that exhausted her every goddamn meeting. Well, I wasn’t going to, and now you get to deal with the consequences of your appalling behaviour.

As of this year, 2026, the librarian who was running it at the beginning is back, setting new rules and a structure the members adamantly didn’t want. I saw their behaviour during my last meeting; they wanted to do and say what they wanted. And since two weren’t there at the final meeting of the year, that I know of, they won’t know until they’re back how they’re under the control of the library once again on a short leash.

Suck it up, bitches.

2025 was quite a year of mental growth for me, and it will continue as I produce more books, stories and guides.

I’m glad to be done with the energy vampires, and cheers to me and another productive year.

 

As an added extra, here are my observations about the writers’ group members

II: Came into the group claiming to be published, not that she mentioned it much, because for the first two years, she barely said boo, and would often leave early. But come 2024, she started coming out of her shell and talking more. Turns out, she’d only had a few articles published.

What she talked about writing, was flash fiction. What she actually wrote was short essays and opinion pieces. When she posted a couple of pieces to our FB group, it definitely wasn’t flash fiction, being that it wasn’t fiction. They were definitely under the essay/opinion piece genre.

In 2025 she started writing up stories about her family and would regale us with them. I personally found listening to people talk about their family boring, and that was one reason I barely mentioned mine. It was a writer’s group, nothing else. But that’s the way things go in groups. We end up talking about other things. And as she was writing about it, we heard about it.

She also thought she could one-up me, and try it on. I mentioned Luke Bateman during a conversation and said I’d done a video on it and watched three videos so I knew what I was talking about.

When she spoke, she said, “Well, I haven’t done a deep-dive into Luke Bateman like you have—”

I cut her off.  “I didn’t do a deep-dive, I watched three videos so I knew what I was talking about.”

She looked at me, and you could see the cogs turning in her head as she contemplated continuing or not. She chose to continue and repeated her comment. I rolled my eyes, sighed, and looked away.

Yeah…because watching three videos is doing a deep-dive and not the most basic research so you know what you’re talking about.

For someone who helps run her local scouts groups, I’m surprised it took her so long to come out of her shell, but when she did, she thought she knew more, unfortunately she’s showing how much she doesn’t know.

MD: He played it close to the chest. Didn’t reveal too much about himself or his personal life. Didn’t give too much away.

He never understood how my brain worked. How I did all of the things I did and wrote a cracking good story.

He couldn’t understand because he was close-minded, as many newbies are. They come out of their old profession wanting to write a book, but can’t reorganise their brain to see things differently. He did a couple of online courses in ’23, but they didn’t help, because you could tell everything went over his head and in one ear and out the other every time you said something.

He would often shut ideas down by saying no, and then give an excuse. He would look up at the ceiling in order to formulate his words, as many of us do, but the blank, disinterested expression on his face said it all. He wasn’t interested in anything we told him, wasn’t interested in writing a book, or story of any kind. No matter the advice, he just didn’t care.

As I told him in ’24, he needed to train his brain to hear everything, see everything, and take it all in. He didn’t. It took two years of constant encouragement before he actually started writing something in early ’25, when I realised I had to stop giving him advice. It was, and is, exhausting giving advice to people who clearly don’t want to take it. I had to let it go, and realised there was nothing else I could do or say that would make him write. It was up to him. But I was glad I didn’t have to listen to him say he hadn’t written anything anymore.

By April, he’d stopped writing and then later left for four or five months. If I recall, while others were bellowing during the last meeting, it was because he decided writing a book wasn’t for him and so hadn’t been writing.

It becomes harder to run a group when half your members aren’t there because they’re not interested in attending, or they’re swanning around the planet on holiday.

What’s the point in being in a writers’ group, then?

OB: Is old enough to be my mother, but that didn’t stop her from mocking me, making the odd snarky remark, thought the group was a democracy and we all voted on something or discussed it.

After her book was published, she was trying to write a fantasy, but she wasn’t getting far. Her life was railroaded by her son’s illness and looking after her grandchild, which we understood as carers. Life takes precedence. She took a lot of holidays and was sick for a lot of ’25. She rarely got back to that book, but did take up writing the life stories of people in aged care homes and hospices as a parting gift for their families. She said it was exhausting but fulfilling. Great.

She was still writing, but she still found the energy to mock me, because she’s a narcissist in denial, and the full DARVO effect happened at my last meeting. She preferred to pre-empt me and get in first, but when I stopped her she blew up.

Only insecure, inferior people mock those who do more. Just because you haven’t and don’t, doesn’t mean you can mock those who have and do.

It wasn’t the first time, I’d copped three years of occasional comments, so nothing new for her. She’d also made comments about other people who’d come through the group, but then, we all had.

Why? You were doing work you chose to do, but mocked me for prepping for the new year in mid-October. You mocked me when I said I may not get to write another book in ’25. You were doing work in your own way, but mocked me for prepping ahead. Why?

How much do you hate your life in order to mock another member of the group for doing more?

I had shit going on in my life too, but still did the work.

AH: Wrote nothing but her book. She had started it long before joining the writer’s group in late 22/early 2023. I don’t remember specifically when she joined, but she was still working on it in 2025. It took that long because she didn’t work on it regularly. Because meeting after meeting she worked on the same shit when it came to the book. It was a constant repetition and I had to push her in late ’24 to set the goal of two things in ’25. Get us to help with edits of the book in the first half, and get an official edit in the second half. She actually managed that, but it wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t pushed. She’s not one to do things in a hurry. None of them were.

That was part of the problem with them. Every meeting it was the same old boring shit. They were at the same point, worked on the same thing, or did nothing at all on their work.

She took multiple holidays throughout the years, didn’t come for half of ’23 after her mother died, which was fine, we knew she’d be back when she was ready. But she didn’t come back in a hurry.

We had a workshop in ’24, and she turned up to that, but hadn’t yet rejoined the group. Finally, she did, and swanned in as if she hadn’t even been gone, and was still in the same place she was before she left. Talk about procrastination city!

She’s also incredibly insecure.

In 2023 she was talking about going on holiday, but because she’d gained some weight had to go and buy some clothes. I made a sympathetic sound because I knew exactly what she was talking about as my weight was high at that time and I was up to sizes 18-20. She spun towards me, thrust her finger a me, and said, “I knew you’d laugh, Tiara,” and turned back to MD.

Shocked, all I could do was look up at the ceiling and shake my head. I had done no such thing. A sympathetic sound is not laughing, but, as it occurred to me on the drive home, she had clearly rehearsed what she was going to say, and what she thought I would do. Laugh. And she had her answer prepared. 

The utter fucking gall of the insecure bitch! I knew that comment was all about her insecurity, and nothing about me. Which is why I ignored most comments. They weren’t about me; they were about their insecurity. Unfortunately, ignoring comments allows them to continue.

In 2025, after BB joined, I noticed she kept moving closer to him. Made her way down the table one chair at a time, until she was beside him. Him at the end, her on the right angle. But she would move her chair back towards him so she was even closer. She became handsy, to the point she was way too physically comfortable with him.

It’s obvious, to observant ones, she had an attraction.

At my second last meeting, she had taken his usual spot so he had to sit on the angle to me, and next to OB. At one point, she walked around the table, pushed her way between the two of them so they had to move outwards. His foot touched mine, he joked we were playing footsies, and that’s when she walloped him on the shoulder for not paying attention.

There was no reason to do that. No reason to push between him and another woman, or hit him because his attention was on another woman. She was jealous, plain and simple. Jealous that a man who wasn’t her husband was showing another woman attention and not her.

This woman is insecure, jealous, and pathetic, and needs to grow the goddamn fuck up.

She’s also a liar who contradicted herself. She’s claimed several times she doesn’t like confrontations and will then cry. She did it in my last meeting. But not half an hour later, she claimed that when someone says or does something to or about her she pulls them up there and then and nips it in the bud.

Insecure people who don’t like confrontations don’t do that. It goes against their dislike of confrontations. Hell, she didn’t even reply to my Facebook post about the general meeting because she doesn’t like confrontations. She said that in the meeting. Lies and contradictions, much?

BB: I have no doubt, after the way he treated me, what he’d told us about his past was a gaslighting lie. Especially concerning an ex.

He’d told us he ran away from home at twelve and went to live with his grandmother who he ended up caring for. Now he cares for his mother, while not being home much as he still goes to the gym, goes out with friends, etc. But, he controls her drinking to two drinks per night Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. He hates the TV shows she watches, and clearly doesn’t like what she says to him.

He projected. A LOT. Projected his relationship with his mother onto me. Telling me, without telling me, you control your mother, and she thinks you’re a five-year-old brat.

Yikes! I’d hate to be her.

He’d told us a previous girlfriend had treated him like shit, belittled, insulted, demeaned him, made him feel worthless, etc., and he only stuck around because she had two daughters.

But his behaviour towards me, told me he’d lied about this past relationship. When you are belittled and demeaned to that extent, you don’t turn around and treat other people the same way or worse.

When he was bellowing at me, he threw a lot of our conversation from throughout the year back in my face because he had nothing else on me, nothing else to say about me, because he knew fuck all. He’d never delved into any deep conversations about what I’d done, just knew what he’d heard through conversations.

Which was pathetic. Throwing past conversations back in my face as some kind of gotchya. What an arsehole.

I wasn’t going to tolerate any of that behaviour from an overgown school boy in a man’s body, suffering from inferiority complex and small dick syndrome. He’s a gaslighting cunt of a liar and can go to hell.

I knew full well he and AH were the exact opposite of what they’d told us. Probably OB as well. The newbie, CC, was no better. A whiny, insecure, control freak of an overgrown child who couldn’t shut up long enough to understand the group had issues to deal with. It was all about him and his writing and was all he wanted to talk about. Too bad, bitch, it wasn’t about you.

The remarks he made to me, touching me on his way out, showed me the creep he was. And the comment he’d made about the girl who’d come to the previous meeting, told me he was a misogynistic sexist pig.

Two men, behaving badly, don’t need to be in any type of group.

And two women, behaving just as badly, don’t either.

I knew BB was a problem halfway through 2025, because AH’s behaviour escalated as his did. I knew if he was gone, she’d calm down, but wouldn’t change. Neither would OB. And as long as the last four regular members are still in the group, it will continue to be a stagnating cesspool. Which is what it had become in 2025.

At one point, I offered a draft of my updated publishing book to him to read and asked if there was anything else he might want to know.

He barely got past chapter 1. Had excuses, just as MD and AH had when I asked them to do the same thing the year before. I shot back with my mother fell over, cracked her skull and ended up in the hospital, but I still worked.

A layer of shock rolled over his face and I sat there thinking, don’t give me excuses when I have a crippled mother to deal with and yours can still get around and do things for herself. I doubt he actually cares for her and he’s not on carers benefits.

Stagnant people not wanting to learn about the field in which they are in will never be able to help any newbies who come along. As long as they don’t publish regularly or at all, they will never be able to answer questions newbies have. As long as they don’t know about writing issues, like shiny object syndrome, they will never be able to answer the questions newbies have or have conversations about it. I know this, because one new member who came five times until she got her critique, mentioned shiny object syndrome, and AH and BB looked at each other, shrugged, and said, “I don’t know what that it, I’ve never heard of it.”

As long as they don’t personally grow and learn about the field of writing, the group will forever be the way it is. Stagnant and unable to help anyone else who comes through.

 

And my last thoughts on the subject…

When there are people who feel so insecure, or inferior, they mock someone for prepping ahead of themselves, or for getting their planners and to-do lists ready in October, or mock them for doing a lot of things in January before you start back in the group in Feb, it makes them look like petty, pathetic, little pissants who have let their jealousy rule instead of behaving like the adult they’re supposed to be.

And it’s really damn sad when a creative person who plans ahead of themselves, gets treated so damn badly by those petty, pathetic, little pissants that they’re driven to leave so they don’t have to put up with them. Because they’re fucking exhausting!

Your jealousy, and need to put people down is not our problem. We don’t have to tolerate you. When we do nothing but support and encourage and you treat us that way, it will come to a head and be done, and we will be better for it, while you wallow in your ignorant, arrogant, uneducated, stagnant bullshit.