IMPORTANT: Please read

Well guys, this has been a weekend of highs and lows. First of all, thanks again for making my birthday so wonderful. You were a big part of making the day so much fun.

Now on to the less pleasant stuff…

Over the last week, I’ve had a friend’s daughter staying with me and she’s had access to my laptop for schoolwork and facebook and the like. She’s a reader and a fan (and I believe a genuinely good kid) and I didn’t think much about it.

Last night, I came home to discover some confusing messages in my askbox. It’s the internet, so no big surprise. But after some back and forth with one of the senders, it became clear that someone had been using my tumblr account to reach out to people.

So, we had a very long chat. (And I am positively bleary this morning.) She claims she only sent two messages and I hope that’s the case. One exchange seems like fairly innocuous fannish type stuff. The other was aggressive and unkind. I think in both cases, her heart was in the right place and that she believed she was expressing her enthusiasm for the book, but it’s still… not good.

As near as I can tell, tumblr keeps no record of this kind of activity (is there any way to see an outbox or sent messages??), so I have no way of knowing exactly what went down or if there’s more to this. I hope that what I’m seeing is the extent of the damage, but I wanted you guys to be aware of what happened.

I think you know that tumblr has become my favorite home online. I love being here and interacting with friends and readers and fellow fans. I’m a little shaken up and more than a little upset that she may have impacted the friendships I’ve formed here. 

I don’t want to overreact or make a bigger deal out of this than it has to be, but I do want you to know what’s up and that I’m sorry it happened. And if you’ve gotten any whackadoo asks or messages from me in the last week, please let me know.

Love,

Leigh

(and now I’m going to go reblog happy things because this was all so depressing.)