Category — responsibility

The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.

Ecclesiastes1:9-10 KJV

This quote has been on my mind this morning as I contemplate what constitutes plagiarism. My trusty Oxford English Reference Dictionary defines plagiarize as, “1 take and use (the thoughts, writings, inventions etc. of another person) as one’s own. 2 pass off the thoughts etc. of (another person) as one’s own.”

So, basically, intellectual theft – but what if you haven’t actually stolen anything and it only feels like you did? What if you’ve come up with a very, very similar idea – practically the same idea – independently?

Here’s what happened: several weeks ago, I wrote a scene in my first draft where my protagonist is learning to cross over from the human world into the world of the fae via a portal in one of BC’s provincial parks. I describe what the portal looks like, feels like, and even sounds like. The description I wrote has been floating around in my head for the better part of a year now and I was reasonably happy with what I wrote.

However, this morning I was finishing up the latest Sookie Stackhouse novel, Dead Reckoning – I love this series, it’s such good fun to read – and I read a description of a portal to Faery that is, in some respects, nearly exactly like my own – so nearly exactly, in fact, that after reading it I had the uncomfortable feeling of having somehow stolen my description from Charlaine Harris.

Now, given that Dead Reckoning was released on May 3 (two days ago) and I didn’t purchase it until last night, or read the pertinent scene until 5:30 a.m. this morning – and that I have never met Charlaine Harris, never mind been part of her peer review group for upcoming Sookie Stackhouse novels – it’s an impossibility for either of us to have stolen the others idea about what a portal to Faery looks like.

So now I’m left wondering this:  if the ideas are nearly the same – and I’ve freely admitted here that they are – is it plagiarism if I keep my scene exactly the way it is, even knowing that Charlaine Harris beat me to the punch in publishing her idea first?

I want to say it isn’t plagiarism, because I know damn good and well that I didn’t steal her idea. I didn’t read it and think, “Oh, that’s so much better than my own idea of a portal made of Jello and glitter glue, guarded by armed squirrels – yoink!”.  And I certainly don’t own a time machine that would allow me to steal her unpublished work and burgle the bits about her portal to Faery. I wrote my scene in good faith thinking that it was my idea, and my idea alone.  But, now that I know it isn’t, I’m a little worried a future editor or agent will say, ‘Hey, I think Charlaine Harris already wrote this description, you two-bit hack.”

Yes, I could change it and save myself (and the readers of this blog) all my intellectual hand-wringing, but I don’t want to change what I wrote. I like what I wrote because it works for the scene – but is it plagiarism? Am I a thief now that I know how alike parts of the descriptions are?

Please, help me set my mind at ease one way or the other by leaving your take on this in the comments!

I’ve been watching and reading pretty much everything I can find on the tsunami that struck the north-eastern coast of Japan, this past Friday.

The devastation is unbelievable.

In the aftermath of an earthquake that: measured 8.9 on the Richter scale, moved Japan’s coastline 8 feet and shifted the earth’s axis by four inches, a wall of water, 30 feet high in spots and reaching as much as six miles inland, destroyed whatever the quake hadn’t and caused a massive whirlpool to form.

And as if it weren’t bad enough to have to deal with the destruction from the quake and the resulting tsunami, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant suffered an explosion – not of the nuclear reactor itself – but the building housing it was severely damaged. In addition to that, the generators that help regulate the temperature of the reactor are no longer working – so  the employees of the plant are having to cool it with sea water to stop what would be a catastrophic explosion if the core temperature reached critical limits.

So, consider all that destruction for a moment. Try and conceive of your whole world being literally torn away from under your feet. Imagine being part of the worst hit communities in Miyagi Prefecture – homes, land, businesses all swept away by a vicious and unstoppable wall of water. Imagine yourself as a survivor of that, wondering if your family, friends and co-workers made it to safety. Not being sure of how to find them, or get in contact with anyone to let them know that you were one of the lucky ones. Try and feel some part of the grief that comes with losing everything you know and love.

Have you got all that misery, fear, pain and confusion before your eyes?

Good.

Now imagine someone telling you that you deserved it – all of it – for something that happened 70 years ago.

Feel angry? Disgusted? Sickened by the thought that a fellow human being could wish that on you? That anyone might take pleasure in your loss and misery?

There are many people posting on Facebook and Twitter who believe that the earthquake and tsunami and all the damage and deaths that resulted from it are karmic payback for the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor.

I wish I were kidding, but no, there are people out there who think that God had a hand in doling out punishment for the events at Pearl Harbor.

So, let me provide some facts about Pearl Harbor and the “punishment” for the deaths that occurred there:

• The Pearl Harbor bombing took place on December 7, 1941, killing 2,402 and wounding 1,282.
• The United States got their “revenge” by unloading atomic bombs on both Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and August 9 1945, respectively.
• Those bombings killed 90,000–166,000 people in Hiroshima and 60,000–80,000 in Nagasaki – and about half of those deaths were on the day of the bombings, the rest took place from radiation sickness and flash burns in the following months. The majority of the dead were innocent civilians.

At the very least, 150,000 people died as result of the United States bombing both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and 2,400 military personnel died in the attack on Pearl Harbor. If you want to talk straight revenge, eye for an eye sort of revenge, technically, the US “owes” Japan about 147,600 US deaths to “even the score”.

It hadn’t occurred to me that there could be anyone so callous, so lacking in human sympathy and empathy that they would feel gleeful or vindicated by watching another country get gutted by a natural disaster – that even one person could feel that way makes me ill – but hundreds? Maybe even thousands? And all of them spewing their ignorance and hate out in a public forum – where your name and face are visible?

It’s enough to make me ashamed of being the same species.

I’m not a praying sort of person, but my thoughts are with Japan, my donation to help out with disaster relief is on the way. I only wish I could do more.

Two months ago I left a technical writing contract to pursue…something.

I wasn’t sure what that something would turn out to be, but I’m getting a clearer picture now. I know writing is a major component and my stick people drawings too.

So, fine – I have the freedom to pursue writing and drawing now. Lots of freedom and my husband’s blessing and a good support group – all good things for venturing out of the cube farm.

Last night I set out goals, I made a very doable “to do” list and yet by 10:30 a.m., I found myself mired in MSN conversations about video games, RPGs, personal relationship crises (not mine), random chit chat and idle web-surfing while reading replies.

This is not the work I committed to.

I would never have frittered away the morning on MSN conversations at my contract job. I would have chatted a little, but politely cut it off to get some real work done. Not that I don’t love chatting with my friends, I do. I want to hear about their day, their thoughts, their troubles – all of it. But, never really in-depth talks at work unless it was really dire.

I had rules when I was in the office.

Conversations fell into two categories: Fun/Unimportant and Serious. You can’t decide between whole wheat and white bread for lunch? That’s Unimportant and unless I was waiting around for my project to compile, I never paid much attention to that sort of chatter. You just found out your girlfriend sent all your belongings to your mother’s because she no longer wants to live with you? That’s Serious and I made some time to talk and make plans to continue discussions right after work.

Emphasis on the “after work”. I did my job first, and only rarely – and for really, really Serious things – did the work day take a back seat.

Now that I’m working from home on something a lot less 9 to 5ish, there seems to be an impression that what I’m doing now is really nothing more than a frivolous hobby.

That impression is my fault.

People talk to me and I feel rude if I don’t really listen and respond accordingly. I think I do this in part because a) I was raised to be polite and b) I don’t take what I’m doing seriously either.

I mean come on, I write blog posts and draw stick people. Yeah, that’ll put me on the map. I keep looking at what I want to do and thinking: “This isn’t a grown-up job. I need to do something meaningful.”

For instance, I showed my portfolio of stick people drawings to a few other folks and when I heard the term “artist” come up – I laughed and blushed. Artist!? Pshaw. Waterhouse is an artist. Klimt is an artist. The woman drawing the Mona Lisa on the sidewalk with chalk is an artist.

Me? I’m a doodler.

As for being a writer…I’m a good technical writer. You want a help file that will give you step by step instructions without making it complicated? I’m your girl. These blog posts – well everyone and their brother has a blog. That can’t be serious work.

Except that it is – or at least, it can be if I take it seriously. And if it isn’t serious work, it’s the groundwork for the writing that will be.

So now that I’ve admitted the problem is me, I need to fix it. Maybe I am an artist! Maybe my little stick people are going places. I’ve been a technical writer so why can’t I just say that I’m a writer and leave off the technical part? Besides – no one ever knew what I was talking about when I said “technical writer” anyway and I never thought of it as my lifetime career.

My first step towards fixing this mess is setting my status to “busy” on MSN. If I am going to commit to this, I have to actually commit to it instead of farting around waiting for the Big Idea to fall out of the sky. That isn’t going to happen – I will have to work at this.

Sorry friends, there will be a lot less MSN chit chat in the future so I can focus on the work I keep saying I need to do.

Maybe now I can get on with this new work!