I just wanted to do a shout out to those of you who have contacted me over the years about authors on other sites who have plagiarized my work. I consider it the highest compliment that you recognize the work and realize what has happened and I am so grateful that you do something about it rather than just clicking onto a different page. Over this past year in particular I've received more than one e-mail from an anonymous personage letting me know that this is going on.
I work really hard on my stuff, both for Amazon books and for Literotica and it is mind-boggling and hurtful to me that someone would just lift the hours that I've spent writing and claim them for their own. The most recent instance they didn't even bother to change the names of the characters. I just don't understand what would drive someone to do that.
The only upside? When I checked it out today's report I saw that several people had left comments complimenting the writing. Nice to know they liked it... would have been nicer if I had been the one they were praising. Reported it to the website and for once it was on a site where I could leave a comment and let the thief know exactly how hurtful and upsetting I found their actions. It's possible that they might care and learn from this... I hope so.
I find it difficult to describe the utter feelings of fury and helplessness and upset that swamp me whenever plagiarism is reported to me. My hands get all tingly and kind of weak, my stomach all nauseous and churning... and I start wondering why someone would be so disrespectful. They can't possibly feel good when reading the praise can they? Because it's not like they did the work?
It's a question that plagues me often.
Speaking of writing... I got a bunch done today. I'm almost done with my submission for the Literotica Nude Day Contest. Hopefully I'll manage to finish it before the contest is over! Ack. It's rather long, I really should have started working on it earlier. I also did a lot of writing yesterday and managed to get the next chapter for Marriage Training submitted so hopefully that'll be out by the end of the week. In the mean time... I'm definitely on track to have Dealing With Discipline published in August although I'm really hoping to get it done this month. As you know I was hopeful to have it finished in June but I didn't realize how long it was going to end up being. I'm about 2/3 of the way through currently, maybe even closer to 3/4... I just need to keep up my current speed!
Anyway... just wanted to say that I'm thankful and appreciative of all my readers, but I did want to do a special shout out to those of you who, understanding how much my work means to me, have let me know when I need to protect it.
I remember once instance on Lit - a different writer had her story stolen. It was actually one of my favorite stories, and even though the original author contacted the moderators at Lit to have them take it down, it still took them almost a week to do so...in which a number of people commented on how much they enjoyed the story the first time they read it (under the original title by the original author). I wonder if it was the same thief. Apparently whoever it was had stolen a couple of stories and simply retitled them.
ReplyDeleteIt's always a shock when people are called out for plagiarism (Jordin B. Williams being the most recent example, stealing from Beautiful Disaster and Easy) but when I think about someone stealing my work...I'm just grateful it hasn't happened, and I hope it never does.
On the plus side, it's a screwy form of flattery. Clearly they thought enough of your work to want it for themselves :)
That's what I try to tell myself, that it's a screwy form of flattering... but the truth is, compared to the other things it made me feel, it's really not. If they really wanted to flatter me they should have just said how much they like it, not done that.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, the website has contacted me that his profile has been deleted and they'd love it if I posted stories to them. I hadn't known about the website before so I guess there is some good coming out of it, even though I'm frustrated and upset about the whole thing. lol. Silver lining!