You’d think most of my battles would involve dragon-sized parasites or moody wyrms with dental abscesses. But no. This week’s villain? A Russian bot. Unfortunately, I’ve been rather distracted as of late by the ensuing bot battle.
That’s right. Some anonymous bit of code from halfway across the globe decided my website’s contact form was the perfect target. In no time, it flooded my inbox with garbage, glitched the form into oblivion, and left me muttering profanity I can’t publish (my mother reads this blog).
Instead of spending my weekend writing about dragon hatchlings with scale rot or wrapping up a scene where Dr. Jordyn Blackstone talks down a hungry dragon with a taste for goats, I was knee-deep in CAPTCHA settings, email filters, and the kind of tech troubleshooting that makes me wish I had a personal wizard. Or at least a teenager fluent in WordPress.
Thanks, Dear Reader
The kicker? I didn’t even know the form was broken until a kind reader emailed me directly to say, “Hey, uh, your form’s dead. I think it’s haunted.” (Thank you, Angela. You are the real MVP.)
So here’s your reminder from a dragon vet who’d rather be writing: sometimes the beasts we battle aren’t mythical or fire-breathing. Sometimes they’re lines of malicious code that derail your day, suck your creative energy, and make you question every career choice that brought you to this moment of engagement in a bot battle.
Bot Battle Concluded
But hey — I’ve fixed the form. I’ve vanquished the bot (for now). And I’m back to doing what I love: writing veterinary dragon mayhem and trying to keep Ember from turning the clinic breakroom into a potion lab.
If you reached out recently and didn’t hear back, or couldn’t get the contact form to respond, please try again. The path is clear. I’ve slain the trolls. And I’ve earned myself a large, possibly enchanted hot chai.
May your weekend be lovely, and most importantly, bot battle-free.
Yours, dreaming in code,
Dr. S. K. Burkman, Author of The Dragon Doc Tales
P.S. Featured image from a carousel ride in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania nearly three years ago; nothing to do with the Russian bot battle.
