Anti-Plagiarism Day

Today is anti-plagiarism day on Jane Smith’s How Publishing Really Works. Inspired by a case of plagiarism she had witnessed unfold, there’s now a whole raft of articles accessible from her blog post here, discussing various aspects of it. Jane herself has talked in the past about the particular case that inspired today, a what seems to be a case of writers’ group plagiarism where the guilty party won prizes off the pilfered work and didn’t seem to understand what he did wrong, to a case she talks about today where a best selling novelist lifted entire chunks of prose from another author’s books. I particularly liked Nicola Morgan’s blog post, where she talks about how being accused of plagiarism is one of her worst fears and about how easy it is to do. Jane’s post also talks about how easy it is to do (further down her post), with a discussion on unconscious plagiarism, or cryptomnesia, but I agree with both Jane and Nicola, that you have to be really conscious about making sure that you don’t do it and take proactive steps to avoid it.

The concept of plagiarism scares the hell out of me, not so much that someone will plagarise me, I, after all, am an unpublished writer and I don’t attend writing groups. I should say here that the principal reason why I don’t attend writing groups is that there isn’t one within easy reach of me anyway (which is strange in a literary town, thinking of it) and I harbour doubts about the usefulness of having my writing critiqued by other unpublished writers anyway, but I’ll admit the prospect of plagiarism would worry me a tinsy bit to. My work in progress is my baby and although I know I’ll have to let my baby go one day, I want it to go to the qualified ‘carers’ of the publishing industry, the agents and the slush pile readers. But, I’m getting side tracked, what really scares the hell out of me as far as plagiarism is concerned is me unintentionally committing it, through either coming up with an idea that just happens to be already out there (and I like the post Jane found in Neil Gaiman’s blog (scroll down a bit) on this matter, where he talks about his opinion on whether JK Rowling ‘stole’ his idea of owls delivering messages amongst other things) or using an idea that I have read or seen and forgotten that I’ve read or seen it or in the case of non-fiction writing, through sloppy note taking or taking short cuts I shouldn’t have, committing plagiarism there. The latter, as in the non-fiction writing, I’ll admit I have done, some of the first posts on this blog, just over two years ago, were written in the aftermath of me being caught, see here and here particularly. I was incredibly peed off with myself for doing it, I’m still peed off with myself for doing it, as I wrote in those two blog posts I’ve linked to, I had entered a non-fiction writing contest which was designed in such a way that the only people with a chance of winning were those that had written the most volume of articles over a set period of time and when a contest is judged more by volume rather than quality, I should have seen that good writing practice was not going to be involved here and me, two years later, can see that, me two years ago, I was naive. I thought, as long as I didn’t directly copy and paste (which I didn’t, although I could see quite a few writers in the contest were, as they’d still left in the ‘see picture here’ comments, on articles that had no pictures). No my crime was paraphrasing and paraphrasing badly. I’ve learnt my lesson since I hope, since that time I haven’t written any more non-fiction anyway, a combination of still not quite trusting myself and issues with time, I see myself as a fiction writer and the non-fiction websites were a distraction away from my goal of working on my fiction work, plus, linking with my fear of not quite trusting myself, a lot of the non-fiction opportunities I’ve seen since, principally providing copy for websites, you have to produce the copy so quickly, I just wouldn’t have the time personally to produce work that I knew, 100% in my heart, was paraphrasing free. I also have the side issue of the fact that when I do write non-fiction it tends to be science based, as that’s my background and I have issues with things like, for example, describing the structure of the DNA molecule in a succinct, easy to read, to the point manner, there are only so many ways of describing the components of the DNA molecule, you can’t just go and invent a new component just to make your work original, so in summary, non-fiction, a whole mine field I am staying way out of. I still do have some non-fiction work out there on the net, posted for a different website, one which placed a greater emphasis on original work instead of volume, that I wrote about the same time as the paraphrasing incident and I still worry about them and look at them and think “is that work really truly mine?” and to be honest if I could take them down, I would, just to get the whole non-fiction thing out of my hair. I look at them and I think, “I think that’s mine,” but I just don’t know anymore about that whole (to me) blurry line of non-fiction science writing.

As for fiction though, I am a hell of a lot more clearer, I can’t even imagine why anyone for a start would deliberately plagiarise, to me, that’s just not in the spirit of writing, why would anyone, as in the case Jane talks about in her blog post, whilst writing her novel, go “I know, I’m just going to insert a great big chunk of someone elses work here”, why do that? When I write fiction, as I’m sure it is with most other fiction writers, it is my world I’m creating, I don’t want to go and borrow anyone elses world. As for lifting whole story concepts, as in the case of Jane’s writing group example, that’s just mean and indicates a complete lack of original ideas from the plagiarist. So I see there a great big fat line which would be very difficult not to see and equally difficult to morally and professionally cross. You’re a writer, ergo you should have pride in your writing not someone else’s. But I think there’s also a thinner, more blurrer line, one which is easier to cross, as I wrote about my fears at the beginning of this post, having an idea completely independently from someone else at the same time or including an idea that you’ve read or seen about and have absorbed into your subconscious and forgotten its origins. Going back to Neil Gaiman’s post about the owls as an example, I think he’s right, the concept of owl’s delivering messages, probably not particularly new and he’s right about his relaxed attitude to it, another writer, who knows, could be a bit more uptight. I think the writers only defence against this particularly murky and blurring thin line is to do what they recommend all beginner writers to do anyway, know your market, read the competition, make sure your ‘baby’ isn’t too similar to someone else’s ‘toddler’ that’s been lurking around on the shelves for a few years. And of course all that reading is good for a writer anyway but then you’re flooding your brain with all those words, all those ideas and what if something pops into your head a year or two later and you can’t quite figure out if it’s your idea or you’ve seen it before somewhere . . .

So that’s my person take on plagiarism in writing, but I am also interested (read concerned) about plagiarism in another aspect of my life which has similar issues that writing has with plagiarism, that of producing and selling original crafted designs. I should explain to those just visiting my blog, that as well as try and write, I also enjoy my crafting and plan to open an Etsy shop this summer and the thought of opening my shop has very much concentrated my mind on what constitutes an original design, after surely a scarf is a scarf or a tote bag is a tote bag, but it’s nowhere near as clear cut as that, base a product you’re selling on a design from a book and you’re breaking, what copyright? You’re breaking something anyway. But I find the blurry line is how far away from that original bag you made from a book does your bag have to be before it’s different? Luckily for me I’m absolutely rubbish at following other people’s designs, so I’m not too worried about that. With me, it’s just like the issue with writing, you absorb yourself in all the wonderful design work out there and it comes to a point where you think of an idea and you think, once again, is that really my idea or someone else’s, have I seen that somewhere before and forgotten? Of course there’s still that great big thick line to, deliberately copying someone’s design, I’ve even heard of someone recently copying word for word, i.e. copy and paste, someone’s shop’s terms and conditions.

So, over 1500 words of ramble, which I’ll now try and sum up. Personally I don’t think plagiarism is black and white but nor do I think it’s excusable. I think you have to work very hard not to fall into some of the more greyer areas of plagiarism, you need to do your research to constantly check the validity of your ideas, and you need to try your hardest not to be naive or lazy or rushed to fall into the more obvious areas of plagiarism.

Boy Lacer’s Nursery Induction Day

This week has been one of those weeks where I find it strange that it’s Friday already. Mr. Lacer has been off work for three days, well two days and working from home for the third, with the sinus infection I had last week, which he said when I had it *quote* “You just have to get through it”, whilst I was going round feeling like someone was hitting me on the nose with an iron bar, repeatedly. He gets it and he gets time off work and gets to lounge around in bed. Just my little commentary about men there

Anyway, it’s Friday now and today was the day of Boy Lacer’s nursery induction, it seems just like yesterday we were at Girl Lacer’s nursery induction, Boy Lacer was there that day to, he couldn’t walk, but I remember him crawling over to a little basket of books, pulling them out from under something and then taking the books and sitting there, reading them quietly, until it was time to go, when he put all the books back in the basket and pushed them back where he found them. Now it’s Boy Lacer’s turn for nursery and whereas Girl Lacer was very gung-ho about it, Boy Lacer is rather apprehensive, however even he can see the benefits of nursery (over playgroup, where he didn’t mind going), more space, more toys, more books and (eyes light up time) computers! I predict they’ll have problems trying to stop him trying to get into the operating system. He did seem to like it there, although his bubble was burst a little when he realised he would have to share the toys!

It’s still the lovely nursery teacher Girl Lacer had but a new nursery nurse, however she seems just as lovely. She noticed that Boy Lacer was still in nappies and inquired whether he was likely to still be in nappies in September. Now I was sort of dreading this conversation, because although I know, with Boy Lacer being a special needs child, they have no choice but to accept him in nappies, but I’ve been wondering how inconvenient it was going to be for them, but the nursery nurse was lovely, so when I said probably yes, she goes “No worries, we’re all set up for that sort of thing,” phew!

After the nursery induction, me and Boy Lacer needed to go straight into town, now I had decided that at least on Boy Lacer’s induction day, I wasn’t going to wheel him up to the school in his oversized pushchair (never mind that 9 out of 10 drop offs and pick ups when we take / go and get Girl Lacer, are in the pushchair). So we had walked to the nursery and then I figured we could walk to the bus stop afterwards, which wasn’t far. Sigh, as we walked down the road from the school to the bus stop, I could see we had missed three buses by the time we eventually got to the bus stop, Boy Lacer was walking so slow and reluctantly. It was nice once on the bus though, turns out a girl (who I didn’t recognise, but presumed was from playgroup) was on there and she knew Boy Lacer and Boy Lacer seemed to know her, it was really sweet, they sort of talked together (not like Girl Lacer, who would have talked the ear off a friend on the bus when she was 3, but still, it was talking), Boy Lacer even introduced me “This is my mummy”.

Then it was on into town for the shopping, now I knew not to be too ambitious, keeping it to three shops max and within a short walking distance of each other but even so he was flagging before we’d even left sight of the bus stop in town, completely in a world of his own and walking very slowly. So sorry to anyone who had to swerve to avoid me or Boy Lacer, Boy Lacer, was, as I say, completely in a world of his own, a world which seemed to involve a lot of whinging and I had to walk very slowly and even then was walking more quickly than him, so I had to walk, cricking my neck over my shoulder to keep sight of him (he will not hold my hand).

We made it into Fat Face though, buying a blue linen dress I’d had my eye on for ages and was now £15 off and then onto John Lewis for some more orange thread and a couple of metres of fabric (next project – make a hat, I’ve always wanted to do that but have never found a pattern that fits, but I’ve now found a useful reference on the web on drafting your own hat pattern, I’ll post more on that later). We had lunch in the cafe, as that was right next to the haberdashery and then down for a quick trip to Waitrose and even though we’d sat down for a good break over lunch, he was still very tired and whingy and he looked as if he was in pain with his feet. I just about managed to convince him into Marks and Spencer (as that was on the way back to the bus stop), with the promise of another trip in a lift, grabbed some more pyjamas for Girl Lacer (she who grows like a sunflower) and then onto the bus stop, the way how he lunged for the seat at the bus stop.

Got a bus and a seat, in the disabled seating area and if any old biddy had challenged me on that, they would have got a shock, but they didn’t because the bus then broke down and we had to change onto another bus, with whingy boy who can’t make the gap between bus and pavement and an arm full of shopping, all very aware that Girl Lacer was due out of school very soon.

I got my whingy boy home with twenty minutes to spare, vowing that I wasn’t going to be tempted by the ‘ease’ of the bus into town any time soon. (We could theoretically get the pushchair on the bus, but it would involve such a rigmarole, as it’s effectively the size of a wheelchair, that I don’t want to go ‘there’ yet, so taking the pushchair means walking, having said that, me and Boy Lacer are going to Hampton Court tomorrow and I ain’t walking that far!)