Saturday 26 November 2011

ENERGY

Haven't entered as many competitions this year as in previous, but like last year I am close to thirty hits (one more please before Christmas). Got two stories highly commended by 'Lorian Hemingway' in the summer. Got a nod from 'Sean O Faolain' in the fall and just found out that two of my stories made the Bridport shortlist. Four stories have placed first and four placed second and three placed third in various competitions spread over the year. Can't complain.

Have so many projects on the go and yet have produced less this year than in other years. Don't know why that is. Wasn't even going to throw anything in to Bridport... wasn't sure I had anything to that standard that wasn't already farmed out to other comps. Eventually put some things in just to be taking part... so the pieces did quite well considering.

Haven't even been here on the old blog much either. Feeling a tad weary. Needing a pick me up to kick start things again. I know... the successes of the year should be making me whoop and holler... but still I am not switched on... not fully.

Maybe the new year will bring an injection of energy.

(Postscript added on December 11th or 12th - don't even know what day it is! Just to say I have broken the 30 mark with a shortlisting and there's still two competitions to declare before the end of December. A few bombs, too, this past month... was beginning to think that the elusive 30th might stay away for another year. Saying this as a way to boost my own energy.

Yesterday, which I know was Saturday, I got down to a brand new and biggish project and what spilled out as a start felt good...

And am already thinking about my goals for the year coming up... so my head feels more screwed on than it has for a while.)


Thursday 11 August 2011

CLOSE TO THE LAST WORD - SURELY!


If people lie about you to make their accusations against you seem more plausible, then just maybe they are not so convinced of their original accusations or maybe their accusations hold no water. I have shown how Jane Smith lied about my IP number being the same as the IP address of an internet antiques dealer called William Shears – to discredit his voice that was raised against her accusation. I have shown how Vanessa Gebbie lied about her not being able to write for a year as a result of her fallout with me. But there is one person in all of this who has remained in the shadows and been quiet. I ascribed this quiet to some noble higher feelings in her – but I may be wrong, or so someone has informed me.
I was directed to a blogpost this 'noble' other person had written where she confessed that seeing writers she knew, who had started at the same level as her, going on to published success brought ‘a wave of bitterness’ rising up inside of her, an intense jealousy. Then I read a whole other blogpost by this 'quiet' person lambasting an editor for having the temerity to alter something she had written without her consent and prior to publication. And so I wondered why she had not used up one of her many blogposts to lambast me since it is her work that I am accused of having plagiarised. It seems odd that she has not been more obviously outspoken against me.
There is someone who remains anonymous who has taken my actual work and posted it up in the public domain in order that others can see the ‘thief’ I am supposed to be (and by the way this is copyright theft). The site they have set up has had more than 700 visits and there has not been the avalanche of condemnation in the comments on the site that even I expected (given the response without evidence that there was on Jane Smith’s Anti-plagiarism post that had earlier been directed against me). Nor was there even a trickle of condemnation. One (anonymous comment) said that perhaps I had taken too much from this other writer - that was it! Whereas, one William Shears voiced on the site disbelief at the absurdity of the charge against me and said he thought the two stories (mine and the one that I had ‘plundered’) were very different. Who it is that set up this anonymous site (in my name and with my work and without my permission) has been one of the puzzles in all of this.
Then there is the fact that someone has been writing to places where my work has been posted, and to competitions I have done well in, and places where my work has been accepted, to declare me evil and bad. This person has some influence it seems, is a name in the world of the short story, with the result that in certain competitions my submitted pieces are not even read (though my entry fees have been cashed!) and some places have simply withdrawn my work. Until now I have not known who this mystery person was. I do now. Perhaps you can guess!
With some of my competition winnings this year I approached an Edinburgh solicitor expert in matters of intellectual property - so it said in the firm's blurb. I submitted my story and ‘hers’ and, being careful in my wording not to prejudice the response I wanted from the solicitor, I asked if there was a case to answer. I did not reveal the identity of either writer and had removed the titles. I did this because I genuinely wanted to know; Jane Smith had said that she had shown the pieces to lawyer friends of hers and they had said an infringement had been made, but I wasn't sure I could trust what she had said anymore. The solicitor I contacted (not cheap by the way) has taken some time to get back to me. Now that he has I can share with you what he said. Although it was clear that the second writer (that was me) had read and been heavily influenced by the first (that’s her) in his opinion there was no legal case to answer, that the second did not infringe legal copyright, and more than this did not go beyond what a court would see as permissible in the realm of influence. There was lot more that he said but he concluded that no court would likely entertain the case and that this did not represent an example of plagiarism. He advised me not to take it any further (assuming wrongly that I was the writer of the first piece) and to accept that this kind of ‘borrowing’ was not out of the usual. I realise that this is only one opinion and that the matter may be still seen as at the least debateable, as matters of this kind are... if they were clear cut then there would almost be no need for lawyers!
But, at last, and it's as official as I can make it: Douglas Bruton is not a plagiarist.
With my next big competition win (and it will have to be substantial, I realise) I will look into the matter of what I can do to deal with those people who have publicly and privately (through backdoor e-mails) wrongly accused me. This is close to my last word on the matter, I think...

Thursday 14 July 2011

VANESSA GEBBIE'S FICTION WORKHOUSE (2)

I had intended to post here an honest exposé of VG at the helm of FW and how she operated and how after only 4 months she entrusted me with the reins of her 'baby' and afterwards how she thanked me profusely for the very good job I did in steering FW forward. I have written the post, but at the eleventh hour have pulled it. Rereading it, I thought it might be hurtful in its honesty, hurtful towards VG, and, you see, I am not that kind of person. It would serve no purpose to publish it save to hurt VG. If I have hurt her with posts below I am sorry, but have only done what I did below to defend myself against her and others. I am still doing that.

I have recently been writing under a pseudonym. I feel I have been forced into this. I entered a comp last year, throwing in 3 very strong pieces (two have won comps since (one a very a big comp) and the other was an unpublished winner from elsewhere and has since gone on to be highly commended). I entered them into a comp where I had done well several times before, always been on the shortlist and been on the podium twice. I bombed. It made no sense. This happens in entering comps, so I just shrugged. But then someone sent me an anonymous e-mail saying I was not being read by some comp judges... but every comp I had entered had duly accepted my entrance fees! So I felt I had to adopt a pseudonym if I was to be sure in my head that I was being judged fairly.

A writer called Benjamin Judge accepted some of my freely given pieces for a site he had set up. Then my pseudonym was unmasked and he presumed that my adoption of the pseudonym had a malicious intent. It did not. Even VG has written and subbed under a pseudonym before and her mentor AK and many others besides. I did so in order to be read and in order to save others from being targeted by an 'anonymous' person who seeks to undermine my successes at every turn: I had three stories accepted by 100 Stories For Haiti; these were subsequently pulled because someone threatened the editor that he/she would go to the publisher and inform them of my 'past' and so risk having the plug pulled on the whole charitable venture. Again freely given work, to do good only, and again the rug pulled out from under my feet.

Vanessa Gebbie, Jane Smith, and Tania Hershman have all at some time acknowledged that I am a writer with some ability, even some talent. The word 'gifted' has even been used. And yet I am forced to adopt a pseudonym to be read.

Someone on Benjamin Fudge's blog commented that I was a sociopath. This person is called Beebe Barksdale-Bruner. (A sociopath: someone who commits antisocial and sometimes violent acts against others and shows no guilt for the harm that they do. *(see below)) I do not know this person and she does not know me and clearly has not read my blog or any of my defence. Calling a person a sociopath without appreciating the sensibilities of the person and without any consideration of the impact of that act of calling, does, it seems to me, rather epitomise what a sociopath is. I hope Beebe stumbles along here and sees the sense of what I am saying. I bear her no malice.

I have apologised to VG and JS and to TH. I apologise to Benjamin Judge and to anyone else I have hurt or who feels let down because of me... but in what I did, including the posting under a pseudonym, I do not admit any wrong-doing. I have asked for a definition of what plagiarism is and what it is not. I have pointed to how writers going back to Shakespeare and coming right up to date with VG have taken from other writers and shown how I simply fit into this process. I have resolved not to write in this way again (without any admission of guilt in what I did, save that I am sorry for any hurt caused). If Benjamin Judge or anyone else can suggest how I might now go on being a writer and having my work seen and read, I would appreciate it, because I am a writer and worth being read... after all Benjamin Judge, you posted several of my pieces and thought they were good.


* This definition is written in my own words, but it conforms in general to what can be found in a standard dictionary. Online dictionaries sometimes refer you to the word Psychopath as they are related in meaning.

Tuesday 12 July 2011

It Never Ceases To Amaze Me


“People lie…all we can count on is the evidence.” (Gil Grisham, “CSI”)
It never ceases to amaze me the ease with which some people lie and how easily the lies can be accepted by others. Just spotted this on the blog of a writer I once knew; she was talking about writers using other writers’ ideas:
"I really object to the word 'stealing' here. Having been the victim of a real thief of published and unpublished work, who went on to subject an erstwhile close working colleague to a couple of years of abuse in one way and another, I can tell you that theft really is a ghastly thing. When people are talking about 'inspiration', I wish they'd be wary of calling it theft and thus encouraging people like this.


Not that it is relevant, but my treatment, after going out of my way to give this man professional encouragement, help, and a platform for his work in the form of publication in a text book, among other things - knocked me back so that I could not write for the best part of a year. I am not young - and time is something I do not have. My abuser found my upset hilariously funny and stupid. I was ridiculed in public for months, by a professional man who ought to know how to behave better. Misogyny perhaps? Certainly a deeply cruel person. I would not wish that experience on anyone."
I am the mysoginist ‘thief’ she refers to. She once called me ‘kind’ and ‘soft’ and ‘dear’; now I am cruel. She several times described herself to me as ‘unkind’ and ‘not nice’ and having ‘teeth’ that can ‘bite’… but here she says I am cruel!
Anyone who really knows me (and this writer does not) would laugh at the labels 'mysoginist' and 'cruel', really laugh. I am considered a very very gentle man, and driven by equality in everything, and non-judgemental, and fair, and thoughtful, always seeing both sides and always trying to be understanding of all differences of view... all this I am considered, to a fault, by people who know me and by the pupils I teach. So, let me get to the evidence, the lies, that demonstrate the untrustworthiness of what this woman writer says so you might know too: see my bullet points below.
She says that she could not write for the best part of a year. A quick perusal of her two blogs will tell you otherwise. (You can look for yourself!)
  • In the time she is talking about (Aug 2009 until August 2010) this writer posted more than 150 blogposts and some of these run to a thousand words or more.
  • She went on numerous writing retreats during this period where she said ‘What did I achieve? Lots!’ That’s what she said on her blog. (The year before any of this happened, she reported once that writing was going slowly and on another occasion she had done none at all and had only read books – both of these occasions involved breaks away from the world.)
  • During this ‘lost year’ she said she worked hard on her poetry, something that was new and she was developing.
  • She also promoted, with over 15 blogtours, her textbook on short story writing, as well as promoting it in the real world with various live events.
  • She put together and published another edition of a magazine she edits.
  • She was a competition judge for probably the biggest fiction comp in the world, and for another very big comp only six months later.
  • She put together a complete collection of flash and micro fiction of her own, which she has so far had placed with two different publishers.
  • She put together another collection of short stories for publication and this has now been published.
  • She worked on her novel, which involved adding tens and tens of thousands of words to what she had, and then extensive rewrites over the period.
  • She applied to the Arts Council for a grant and following the success of her application was involved in even more intensive and extensive rewrites.
  • She contributed fiction and poetry to very many publications over this time and had many pieces accepted.
I do not begin to touch on the business of the rest of her life, suffice it to say that she is never still for long and had a lot of personal difficulties to deal with in this time.
But how can this writer claim that she could not write for a year and suggest that I somehow stole a year from her when the years are so precious to her now that she is older? There aren’t many writers who could claim to have done as much as she has in the same period.
She lies about herself quite spectacularly; how much more easily does she lie about others?
Her mentor and writing guide, the person who taught her so much, runs a writing camp thing. I once considered doing a spell at this camp. I asked her what she thought. She said the man who ran the operation was a great teacher and I might learn a lot from him, but that he was also a bully and probably a misogynist too. He was, she said, after falling out with him, the reason she set up her own writing place called ‘The Fiction Workhouse’, a gentler more friendly writing club. If she doesn’t like you, if she falls out with you, then her default setting if you are male seems to be to label you a mysoginist.
I did not steal from this writer as she claims. She says everywhere that I stole very specific ideas from her, but she nowhere has specified what those ideas are and no one seems to have picked up on that. I worked very closely over the internet with this writer. We wrote a novel together spread over nine months, a novel of letters winging back and forth; and several stories we wrote together, too, and we critted each others’ work in close detail. If I absorbed stuff from her work then I did no more than a good writer does. One of her favourite novels is ‘Austerlitz’ by W G Sebald. In it there is a moment that looks into a window in Tierzin, one of the Nazi Death Camps near Prague. In the window we see a box of seashells. This collaborating writer in the novel we worked on together and set in Prague and the surrounding country, was writing about Tierzin and a woman incarcerated there. The woman owned the same box of seashells. At the time I read this I thought it was a lovely piece and strange and magical. Then I read ‘Austerlitz’ and was surprised by the shells in the window. I do not say that she stole from Sebald, but can see that she absorbed from him something from his book, and that in writing about the same place, Tierzin, the shells crossed over into her writing. This, it seems to me, is normal and natural and not theft. I have not stolen from this writer as she claims. If I had, she would have sought legal representation in suing the pants off me – that’s what she would do and that’s what she didn’t do, that's the teeth she would bite me with.
I look forward to the publication of her upcoming novel so that I might then openly discuss what she claims I stole from that work and which I also hotly deny.
I find it hard to believe anything that this writer says now... but others swallow her lies with surprising ease. Check the evidence - it is all that we can count on.

This writer I write of is called Vanessa Gebbie.

Monday 11 July 2011

VANESSA GEBBIE’S FICTION WORKHOUSE (1)


I am a hoarder. I rarely throw things away, thinking they might have a use further down the line someplace. E-mails I hoard, too, and in reviewing how I come to be where I am I have been rereading many of those e-mails, over two hundred from Vanessa Gebbie alone.
In April 2008 Vanessa Gebbie, having read some of my work, invited me to be a member of her hand-picked group of writers working in her closed on-line site called 'The Fiction Workhouse' (FW). I was like a kid in a sweetshop on my first visits to the Fiction Worhouse – I remember the time so clearly. One of the first pieces I read there was a flash fiction piece by VG in which a young girl was observing an older man. Members were encouraged to read each other’s posted work and to pass comment on the posted pieces. Eager show-offy puppy as I was, I went one better: I wrote a reply to VG’s piece changing the point of view so that the man was now observing the girl. I wrote it in the same style. VG was so taken with what I had written that she wrote a response from the girl and so we ping-ponged back and forth until we had written between us 9 or 10 flashes. Then VG said we should each take away what we had jointly produced and using the pieces construct a complete story. This we did so that we had, in the end, two stories out of the process.
VG was excited at this new way of collaborating and wanted others in Fiction Workhouse to see what we had done and to see what fun this kind of collaboration could be and how it could produce very good writing. A brief online discussion took place about how we should submit the pieces, whether to competitions or to magazines. I was keen to acknowledge VG’s contribution to my piece. Someone else on FW suggested we sub only one of the pieces and that we go for co-authorship. VG got quite cross with this person and broke off discussion; instead, she e-mailed me privately. This is what she said:
“I was a bit thrown by X’s view that we should only sub one of the stories, and then as a joint thing. I can’t agree! Don’t know what you think… but we’ve invented a new form of collaborating in which the work becomes two very different pieces. Some of the images are the same, sure… but the themes, characters, focus, the whole story is entirely different. I have no trouble with them being treated entirely separately, do you?”
I didn’t. I was excited that as a writer she saw ideas as I thought they should be seen, as common property rather than private property, a sort of socialist view of ideas. She had used some of my ideas and I had used some of hers and there was no sense on either side that this was wrong. Indeed, VG wanted to hold it up as model for others to work by.
So taken with this way of working was VG that within a few weeks, on a quiet night in FW, she asked if I wanted to ‘play again’ and if I did she suggested I flash something up on the site to get the ball rolling. And so we did it all over again.
This sharing of ideas was established between us, so for VG to now cry 'thief' seems strangely absurd.
Early in 2009 VG was in South America. She still popped into FW sometimes, at a distance, to post prompts to stimulate members into writing. At this time she posted half a dozen. No one responded at all - no one except me: I responded by writing something to each of the prompts, show-offy puppy eager to please VG and not wanting her to be upset that others were not responding to her prompts. VG posted no more prompts but she sent me an e-mail saying there was a piano tuner in Ushuaia and there must be a story there. That's all she said. I responded: I wrote a complete story. On her return from SAmerica I was excited to show her and asked her if she wanted to see. I was a little crestfallen when she said she didn't want to see it as she was sure it would be extremely good and she did not want my ideas in this case to influence the story she wanted to write. There was no sense that I had done anything wrong in writing mine - why should there have been? Later, when my story did well in competitions, VG got upset. Whatever your thoughts about this, and the facts are as I have presented them, what is certain is that there was no malicious intent to misappropriate VG's ideas. So why does she cry 'thief' still, without giving any specifics of what I am supposed to have stolen from her?
"I am not a nice person," she once wrote to me; on another occasion, "I am not kind"; and yet another, "I have teeth and I bite". VG frequently fell out with the writers on FW and when she did it was all so acrimonious and she was known for her temper at FW and some of us acted as peacemakers on the site. And now she has fallen out with me.

Thursday 7 July 2011

Challenge to Karen Clarke et al


Been a way for a while. An accident at work escalated into something more serious and so ended up in hospital enduring two operations under general anaesthetic. Slow road to recovery through the school summer hols lies ahead. Feeling crap. So that’s where I’ve been, and may not feel much like being here online for a wee while, and when I am I won’t be so chipper… that’s the drugs talking.
Anyway, I have a lot to catch up with: missed some competition entries for June, which was a shame, but health is more important than that; got some comp results to check up on: and the matter of someone leaving a comment here a wee time back needs addressed.
I don’t get many comments here these days (you find out who your friends are when something goes wrong), but one person did drop in to comment on a post of mine. She made two comments actually, but the second was just to goad me into publishing the first. There was no need for the second: I posted Karen Clarke’s comment with a response and a challenge. If you are going to criticise me then the least you can do is to think the criticism through. Karen said I showed no remorse for the ‘wrong’ I did two years back. I pointed out that I had apologised, withdrawn the ‘offending’ story and resolved to work differently; what I did not do was admit that I had done wrong. I did not admit this because rationally I cannot admit this. I challenged Karen Clarke to say where the line should be drawn given that all writers pick up their influence from other writers and that all honest writers admit to borrowing. I am still awaiting Karen’s reasoned response. I don’t expect much.
I have asked other writers the same question and when they get down to it they admit to not having an answer. Personally, I sit in the camp where using someone else’s actual words is an actual crossing of the line, but the evidence around me, in all things creative (art, writing, music, dance, theatre and film) is that the borrowing of ideas is natural and all a part of the creative process. That explains why the copyright law does not prevent such borrowing, cannot prevent it.
So, Karen Clarke and any other writer worth his or her salt, tell me, if you can, where is the line of what is allowed and what is not when it comes to borrowing others’ ideas and making them your own Make your statement and make it fit what happened with Shakespeare and a million writers since. Make it reasoned and sensible. Mud-slinging is just dirty, Karen Clarke, so try something more cerebral.

Thursday 16 June 2011

Congrats to A.G.Taylor

I wrote a long while back about having made it to a very nice shortlist with my children's book 'The Chess Piece Magician'. I was one of five on the shortlist for The Heart of Hawick Children's Book Award. What this meant was that the organisation bought 70 copies of my book and distributed them to schools in Hawick. The children in Hawick then read the books on the shortlist and whole classes were inspired to do projects related to the books. All of that explains why I announced my shortlisting a long way back and am only now bringing the news.

Late in May of this year an event was held to announce the winner, to showcase the books and to display the children's amazing work. This year's winner is A.G.Taylor for his book 'Meteorite' and it's a cracker... so congrats to the writer.

For me, well, a shortlisting for an award was such a genuine thrill and having so many children reading the book and talking about it and doing work inspired by it... I have to pinch myself sometimes.

So, thanks to everyone in Hawick for this great award and for promoting books and reading in such a positive way.

Wednesday 8 June 2011

Exeter Writers!

Congratulations to Joanna Campbell for her win at Exeter Writers in their annual competition. My 'The Precious Things of Imogen's Library' came in second. Some other good writers on the shortlist, too. Well done to them all.

My 'Imogen' came out of a 50 word flash I did in response to one of Sarah Salway's photoprompts from way back, a picture of bark laid on a banister rail... weird how the imagination works, because my spiteful love-wronged Imogen came out of that photograph... So, thanks must go to Sarah, too, for without her picture there would be no Imogen.

You can see the top three stories on Exeter Writers' website.


Friday 3 June 2011

People in Glass Houses!


There’s been an interesting discussion in several places on the blogosphere recently to do with something Carlo Gebler wrote about writing. The article is on www.contemporarywriters.com, I think. It bemoans the life of the jobbing writer in a way that has got some people thinking and disagreeing and wanting Gebler to just stop moaning and go do something else. Surely we all have the right to moan about what we do sometimes. But that’s not the really interesting bit.
Gebler says in the article: I read primarily to steal. This attitude applies not just to books but to everything. In every situation ... there is another part of my personality that is scrutinizing my experiences and thinking two terrible things: What’s in this for me? And: Can I use this? Can I put it in a story? Can I put it in an article?”
This has caused some writers to tie themselves into crazy knots that reveal a want of logic in their thinking. One writer thought it a ‘ghastly admission’ that Gebler reads to steal; this same writer has borrowed from her own reading, admits to this, says such borrowings in her work are ‘legion’, so where’s the logic in her ‘ghastly’? ‘I was a bit sad to see a writer of his standing saying he ‘steals’ from others,’ says the same writer! Then she goes on to try and define ‘steal’ as inspiration to save Gebler. But that doesn’t hold water, so she then tries to say she was just shocked that Gebler was asserting that he reads in order to steal… seeming by this to be allowing that it is ok to ‘steal’ in some sense…. maybe that kind of stealing is what she calls ‘borrowing’! I borrow but everyone else steals!
Then on the matter of using other people’s lives to write one’s own fiction, this same writer says ‘I'm sure every writer finds inspiration in the work of other writers, and if not in noticing the lives of those around us, then where else?’
But then the same writer goes on to say this: ‘As for 'using' the experiences of vulnerable people who are suffering because of their vulnerabilities, and making a profit out of it for oneself, not them - is that OK? I'll leave that as a question. If one does it with their permission, and the results help them in some way - is that OK?’
The want of logic is, I think obvious, and the knotted hypocrisy, too.

Saturday 21 May 2011

TWO YEARS AGO...

Two years ago I was accused of plagiarism and this caused an online 'scandal'. I apologised to the writer at the time, the writer I borrowed from, not because I felt I had done anything wrong, but because I had clearly upset her. I withdrew the 'offending' story from the public domain in deference to her, but did not feel that what I had written represented a wrong thing.

The writer in question maintained a noble quiet on the matter, except to let it be known that she was hurt. I was sorry she was so hurt. This was a writer that I had been nice to. When she was being attacked on the website of a scientific journal, attacked for her science-inspired writings, I was the first to jump to a defence of what she was doing; when she was depressed shortly after the publication of her book of short fiction, I took a moment from her life and turned it into a cheery piece of fiction just to brighten her day. So I did not ever intend to harm her. I did not think what I had done would.

I still do not think that what I did in taking from her story to tell mine, is wrong, though I am careful these days not to write in this way. I know this hurt writer finds inspiration herself in what others write, and finds ideas there and does not think anyone ever comes up with an unprompted idea, and discovers solutions to how to tell a story she is struggling with in the way another writer has told his story; indeed, she is a 'borrower'. But, still she is hurt, and still I am sorry for that hurt.

About fifteen months ago I sent the 'cheery piece I had written to brighten her day' to a charity publication along with two other pieces. I was fortunate enough to have all three accepted. Then someone wrote to the organisers and the publishers and complained that I was a plagiarist. A small behind-the-scenes discussion took place which threatened to have works withdrawn by three writers including myself. The organiser did not think I had done wrong, not from a cursory look at the matter. Then I was asked to choose one of my pieces and to have this be the only accepted piece for the publication. I chose the cheery piece I had written for the hurt writer; I thought this was a good choice, and that it would be a nice thing to do. Someone took further offence and threatened to write to the new publisher if my piece was accepted, and so in the end my piece was withdrawn with my consent and without fuss in order that the charity publication be a success. It was.

I am not a plagiarist. I am a writer. I am a good writer. I should not be prevented from writing or from being read. I should not be prevented from doing good with my writing. I think even this 'hurt writer' should accept this. She thinks I did wrong... but no law has been broken, and no one has been able to convincingly argue that someone's moral rights have been trampled on. Indeed, I am more and more convinced that no wrong has been committed here. But I have apologised, and I do work in a different way now, carfeful not to further hurt other writers.


Sunday 15 May 2011

MANNERS!


Is it plagiarism if you want to use an idea or image that appears in another writer’s work and you ask for their permission to ‘borrow’ it? If there is no acknowledgement on the new work to say you borrowed it and that you had permission so to do – then others, not knowing about the permission, are open to seeing it as simple theft? I know a writer who makes a stand against plagiarism and so you’d think she would not approve of this borrowing; but she has done just this and acknowledges the same quite openly on her blog. Surely this is using someone else’s idea? And as such this writer should be against it?
If this is not plagiarism, then someone who does the same without permission is doing exactly the same act, but simply has not followed the good manners of asking first. Does that mean that plagiarism of this kind is just a want of manners? And if it is, then should we be that bothered about such borrowings?
My own view is that it is silly to get worked up over this type of borrowing and that writers do this all the time and sometimes do it consciously and unconsciously. But if this sort of theft is alright, then there needs to be some thought about where the line of unacceptability can be drawn. Is this an arbitrarily drawn line and if it is, then who decides where it should go? Surely the copyright law was put in place both to acknowledge the impossibility of drawing such a line and to at least impose some sort of safeguard of a writer’s work… that’s why the specific arrangement of words is protected by copyright and why there is no copyright on ideas.

Monday 25 April 2011

WHY?

Why do we do this writing thing? I think the layman, the man in the street, the man in my street (and the woman, too) think it is because of the money. I am not the first or the last to laugh at this. I just about break ahead at the moment, and that's with some biggish competition wins each year, and enough of them, and a children's book out there. I certainly do not make enough I could give up the day job, not even for a single month (not that I would anyway, thank you very much).

There's a great blogpost here: http://patriciaannmcnair.com/blog/

I think it says it all and says it in an amusing way, too, and this from a writer who might be judged to have made a success of writing... on her own terms.

Of course there are those who rake in millions, and there are those who eke out a living from it. But there are far more of us who simply do it for something other than money.

I used to act. It was like donning a mask and becoming an extrovert at no risk. I am a teacher and that is something the same. And now I write, and you know, it is not so very different. It is a way to express myself; it is me being creative (and I need to be that); it is something that I love (having loved reading first); and (I am told) my writing brings pleasure to others who read it... the better question is why wouldn't I be a writer?

It is not the money, not ever the money, not even the lure of it.

Sunday 24 April 2011

Forgive!

I keep getting these pithy little pick-me-up quotations in my hotmail in-box. I don't recall requesting them. They just started appearing, as if from nowhere, like little gifts. I read them sometimes and then fly on past and consign them to the bin not always giving them the time they need. But it's Easter and the sun is trying to break through the clouds and a blackbird is singing it's heart out in the laburnum tree outside my window and the cat is stretched out on the slate tiles trying to find cool and this is in my in-box today and it feels appropriate somehow:

"He who cannot forgive breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass." (George Herbert)

So, to anyone who has done me wrong or harm, I offer forgiveness, unreservedly; and to anyone to whom I have done wrong or harm, I beg for it, humbly. And to anyone reading this, why not do the same in your world.

Happy Easter everyone.

Friday 22 April 2011

RARE WISDOM!

Was reading again Jonathan Lethem's article on 'The Ecstacy of Influence' and thinking again of this idea of the 'gift economy' as applied to the things we writers do. Still makes absolute sense, this does. You should check it out if you are serious with this writing game.

I entered a competition recently, one I have entered in the past and done well in. The person processing my entry recognised my name and thanked me for entering and said they were pleased that I had. Then the person said: 'Your stories are wonderful, and full of a rare wisdom.' How nice is that? To be read first of all, and to be remembered, and then to be thought well of, and wise! That's as good as getting a result in my book.

And it all goes to the idea of me, as a writer, gifting my stories to the world and hoping to be read and appreciated for what I have written and all the rest is just bullshit.


Monday 18 April 2011

Sun is Shining


After the usual rush of writing in January, I sort of stalled. It’s not that I didn’t have stories to tell, it’s just that I wasn’t sure why they had to be told. They felt a little frothy and superfluous. I wanted to say something in a story and something that had to be heard. That’s what I thought. And so production has been slower than usual.
I have tinkered with things and produced lots of flash fiction that may grow into something. I am working on a novel as well, and have penned nearly 20,000 words of that, and I am pleased at how it is going, so it’s not as though I have been idle. But still there was a nagging voice in the back of my head, that maybe it was time for something serious. So, yesterday I laid down a draft of something, was not altogether happy with the ending and not sure that it quite had what I wanted to say. I slept on it and woke to a much more complete ending. It is done now, and it is the first story in a long while where I feel it should be read for what it has to say as well as for the story and the writing.
And then today the draft of a second story falls onto the page, and it has something good in it too. And in my in-box notification that I am placed third in a story competition and I know I am on a shortlist for something else…nine competition hits so far this year and it feels good again… and I have a story available as a download through Ether Books for just 59 pence…and the sun is shining outside my window and birds are singing.
I hope there is something good where you are... whoever you are.

(Not wanting to put up a separate post for this, but something to add to the above: have just found out I am third in that shortlisted competition mentioned. So that makes nine competition hits: 2 in first place, 2 in second place, 2 in third place, and 3 commended; not bad to start the year, and 15 pieces printed or posted on the web so far. I should also mention that I have bombed in a handful of comps, too... it's not all easy.

And yesterday I think I wrote my emotionally strongest ever short story... it brings a lump to my throat at least.)

Friday 15 April 2011

SAD SAD NEWS

I have just visited the JBWB site (Jacqui Bennett's Writers' Bureau). There is some very sad news there. Jenny Hewitt who ran the operation and who was an excellent judge of creative writing and a truly nice person, sadly passed away on the 18th March. She was a keen voice in the encouragement of new writing and new writers. Whenever I entered a competition at JBWB I felt that I was writing for Jenny personally, such was the flavour of her personal notes of encouragement, always looking forward to reading the next entry - and she meant it when she said that.

I shall miss her cheery responses. Although JBWB will continue to operate as normal, it can never be the same without Jenny. She will be sorely missed by many people and many writers.

My sincere condolences to anyone close to Jenny.

Thursday 7 April 2011

Times they are a-changing... or are they?

I have seen a few blog posts recently that stand up and say to would-be-writers and developing writers: read, read, read and steal, steal, steal - everything. It seems that everywhere I look I see something about art being about stealing and developing ideas that have come from other works. Has the world gone mad? Is this a 'Brave New World' we are creating for ourselves?

Well, not really. It's what I have said all along and others have said before me: we are the product of what has gone into our heads and so what we produce must be influenced by what has gone before. That's just common sense. But if it is to be something other than mere copying (which would be an infringement of the copyright rules) then it has to be something more, a development on what has gone before. It must add something to what is already 'out there'. That's how Art works.

But let's not think that this is anying new. Here, read Goethe:

“What am I then…? Everything that I have seen, heard, and observed I have collected and exploited. My works have been nourished by countless different individuals, by innocent and wise ones, people of intelligence and dunces. Childhood, maturity, and old age all have brought me their thoughts,… their perspectives on life. I have often reaped what others have sowed. My work is the work of a collective being that bears the name of Goethe.”

And so, those petty people who are so prissy precious about their ideas need to wake up and do some serious thinking and realise that their ideas are only really worth anything if they are passed on and made much of. There should not be a sense of having been stolen from, but rather that someone else has been fed and watered by what you put out there. When I give blood it makes me feel like I have done good in the world; when someone takes my idea and makes a new life out of it, then I should feel good also. Is the blogosphere waking up to this? Is that why I am seeing so much on the subject just now? Do we need to differentiate between plagiarism where actual arrangements of words are lifted and 'plagiarism' where an 'artist' uses another's ideas as a starting point for a new work of art?

Saturday 2 April 2011

I DIDN'T THINK SO!

Some private emails in support, but nothing from the people who were called on to respond... and over a hundred views of my blog since I posted two weeks ago. Could it be that there is no response because there can be no hard rules on what can and cannot be borrowed? Since all writers borrow on some level, and some even instruct others to take from the established writers there are, where exactly a line can be drawn becomes difficult... and perhaps even arbitrary.

There is a precedent for borrowing in almost every writer that has ever been, if they are honest and we are honest. It is the proven practice of writers going back to the dawn of writing. It is how art works and culture works and society. Then suddenly there were rules and they were copyright rules and they were there to protect the income of the writers who had published. That seems fair. I can see the need for that. But those rules were not there to restrict the free flow of ideas and the free exchange of ideas; they were there to protect the printed works and the printed words.

Then there were lawsuits and lawyers and it falls to them still to pick and pick at the 'small print' to decide if an infringement has occurred and cases are never so clear cut. I am not a lawyer and few writers are, so how is it possible that well-intentioned and honest writers are to be protected when they borrow? And how does the internet serve to bring about 'justice' in these cases when there are no internet police and just the baying of the loudest wolves to be heard?

Right now I have given up all borrowing... as far as that is humanly possible. That, it seems to me, is the only way. And yet I read a respected and great writer recently and he was telling new writers to take from all other writers and to take and take, and then to make what has been taken their own. Is that simply being irresponsible? Or is there some magic in that phrase 'make it your own'? I repeat that I have never taken something and then not attempted to make it my own; I have never stolen words, not ever; and I have always been honest in my borrowings. I have not been sneaky or clever, but have been open and plain, and there for all to see.

I am not, therefore, a plagiarist.


Friday 18 March 2011

PLAGIARISM


I once asked a writer who holds strong opinions on most things a searching question on how much a writer can borrow from another writer. There is no doubt that this happens and on a grand scale, all the time. There is no doubt that borrowing is natural and as much conscious as it is subconscious. So I wanted to know… how much can you take? This writer, Vanessa Gebbie, said she did not know. I know she borrows sometimes: images, characters, plots… conceals them enough that they might be said to be hers. I also know she openly condemns this borrowing if it is not concealed and a person is caught out. It seems to me there is something seriously unresolved here and so it is no wonder that
a) writers sometimes fall foul of the undefined rule,
b) that the public, not understanding, are so quick to be led to condemnation of the borrower/thief.
But the question, I think, is a real one and one that needs answered. And once it has been answered then we need to shout it from the rooftops… so everyone knows and understands. That seems reasonable. But that is unlikely to happen. Instead we have the wicked witches sticking pins into the backs of the unwittingly condemned and undermining the credibility of writers who may or may not have done wrong, but even if they have done wrong have done only what the great and the good in the literary canon have done and always done.
I have read a lot of articles on modern writers who have had to defend themselves from the label of ‘plagiarism’, but I read something recently that had something serious to add to the debate: Houellebecq, a French writer from the current crop of good writers, told an interviewer that lifting passages word for word was not theft, so not plagiarism, so long as ‘the motives were to recycle them for artistic purposes’. He was offended by the use of the term ‘plagiarism’ to describe what he had done. But the important thing he said was: "This is a skilled insult. Using a big word like plagiarism... always causes some damage. It will always do lasting damage, like accusations of racism." I don’t think the witches are ever mindful of the serious damage they do with their free use of such labels. The accused is as much a victim as the person who feels their work has been borrowed from, more so if we consider that there is so much sympathy and support given to the one who has been borrowed from and who protests their hurt.
I have been called a plagiarist by some people who I know ‘take’ from other writers in their own work. These people cannot give a definitive explanation of what can and cannot be taken, what exactly is plagiarism. They continue to ‘stab me in the back’ in secret, writing to places where I have work accepted to discredit who I am… and all because they have decided I plagiarized two years ago. I have made apology to these writers; not because I admit to doing wrong because I don’t, but because I have hurt their feelings and I would never want to inflict hurt… that’s not who I am. I am a fierce defender of the act of self reflection and I have looked deep into what I did… I read widely on the subject, trying to understand what I did that was so wrong. I do not now take inspiration in what I read, not any more, and I have avoided doing anything of the same since 2009, but I still write. I am no nearer understanding what is allowed and what is not, given that the writers who shout loudest against me do themselves say things like: ‘I have been struggling with a story but I read a story today that gives me a structure that I think will allow my story to be told’! (This is a paraphrasing of what Tania Hershman said in a blogpost, and yet she feels so wronged by someone borrowing from her story!) But now, at least, I am more careful.
When a person does wrong, breaks the law (and I haven’t done that… have never stolen another person’s words and passed them off as my own) we, as a society, support the notion of rehabilitation. We forgive the thief and the criminal and the wrongdoer… so why is my reputation still attacked when no one has been able to say ‘he is still doing it’ (and they can’t say that, because I am not!)?
Last year I sent three flashed pieces to a site looking for contributions to help a charitable cause (100 Stories for Haiti). All three of my pieces were accepted and then, because someone had secretly and threateningly written to the organization and the publisher, two of my pieces were withdrawn, and then after another spite-filled communication the third was withdrawn… I am not even allowed to do good.
And this week my work was removed from a blog because the owner had obviously been contacted by someone who felt that my voice should not be represented… what kind of censorship is being endorsed here?
I am a good writer and even if you think I have done wrong, I have paid the price for that, a high price. How long does a person go on having to pay? I’d like to know. I know my blog is read, and I know it is read by some of those who 'are keeping an eye on me' and so I appeal to them to give me some kind of answer to what I ask here - and they can do it anonymously... or they can continue to hide behind an unattractive and nasty cowardice and say nothing.


Flash 2


(This piece was done in a flash, with hardly time for breath or thought. I posted it unedited (as it is now) in some writerly place and an erstwhile writer colleague asked if she could use it as part of an essay she was penning about flash fiction. It was for a text book she was contributing to. I said yes, of course. Why wouldn't I? I give things away without a thought and can't really understand those who don't. It's just words, ideas, a story... why wouldn't I gift them to someone else? That's the whole point. And so I gift them now to you, whoever you are, reading this blog. I hope you might find something in what I have written, something that touches you and inspires you and makes you want to write about horses in a barn, and an insensitive father, and a woman who has dreams but dare not tell them, and a girl who is always the same distance away.)
DANCING WITH COBWEB
I am there in the barn, small moonlight breaking through a high window, the thick air warm, and the horses snorting derision. There is music playing, my papa’s fingers fluttering like frightened birds over the holes of his chanter and my mother singing at the sink, or at the oven. I can see in my head her hair pinned back, but a miscreant lock of grey falling limp across her face and her cheeks flushed and her eyes full of out-of-reach dreams. And she is singing, my papa hunched forwards in his chair, one foot tapping on the wooden floor, and blowing familiar music into the night.
And I am dancing, there in the barn, always dancing when there is music, my feet following the rhythm of my papa’s drumming foot, and me dancing in and out of the blue light of the moon, like it is a dream. And it is a dream, for I am holding someone in my arms and she moves with me, her feet in step with mine, shuffling through the spilled straw, and my hand at her waist, or where I imagine a girl’s waist to be. And I wonder if there is someone other than my heavy-footed father dancing in my mother’s head, if that is the dream I see moving behind her eyes when she sings.
And there is a girl in my arms. I can feel one small hand clasped palm to palm in mine, can smell her hair if I lean close, and the music turns us from one end of the barn to the other. And my faint heart runs breathless ahead of me, so that my head spins and the dirt-floor tilts and I fall. And she falls with me, and I hear laughter, my mother laughing And the music broken, and the horses still stamping their impatience.
And the girl’s hand down the front of my trousers then, with my hand, and there on a bed of straw in my father’s barn she gifts me make-believe kisses. And I see spiders in her mussed up hair, her breath smelling something sweet, like new-cut straw, and my own breath snatched.
And when I close my eyes I can see her, a girl I follow to school most days, my steps in hers only at a distance. Every day for almost a year now, the distance never shortened. She moves away from me and that is a kind of dance, too, though there is no music playing. And I hurry after. But though I see her plain as though she was really there in the barn and it was day, though I see her in my head, every dress she ever wore, the movement of her hair as she walks, the way she holds her books pressed to her chest as though she has dreams, too, hidden , there where her heart is – though I see all of this clear as though she is there, I do not know her name.
What you always dreaming for, my papa always says when he catches me. There’s work needs doing, and you always dreaming. Like you was a girl. You want to clear those cobwebs out of your head and see sense, boy. No dream is gonna get you a woman to cook for you, and to wash for you and to keep your bed warm.
And my mother’s eyes, still blue, filled with unspilled tears when she hears him say this. And the girl in my head, I call her Cobweb just for fun, and there in the barn, with the horses quiet again, and my father paused for breath and no music playing, I call her name and feel my body arch and the dream is warm and wet in my hand.

(PS The text book, in case you are interested, is The Rose Metal Press's 'Field Guide to Flash Fiction' and the essay is by Vanessa Gebbie)

Saturday 12 March 2011

SHORT CHANGED

SHORT CHANGED

I have been involved in a debate going on at flashfiction.net regarding Hemingway's famous six (not to be confused with Enid Blyton's famous five!). The six in question are words: 'For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn', and the contention is that these six words constitute a story.

I am unhappy with this as an analysis of the six words. I maintain that the reader creates the story out of the six words and that the six words may be counted as highly evocative or art or poetry, but that the stories that might be inferred from these six words can be completely contradictory: story of a baby who died without leaving the hospital; story of a baby born with outsized feet or no feet or three; story of a couple who could not conceive... etc. The limit of these stories stretches as far as the imagination of readers or writers, which is very far indeed. It also underlines my point that the story is an invention of the reader not Hemingway the writer... that of themselves there is insufficient in those six words for us to say that here we have a story in any acceptable sense of what is a story.

Then Randall Brown of flashfiction.net challenged me to add to the six words sufficient for me to accept that now we had a story. I am not a fan of brevity for brevity's sake and see this drive towards absolute minimalism as gimmicky and uninteresting. So, instead, I took Hemingway's six (and by the way, in the end they are probably not Hemingway's, which I am pleased about as I esteem his writing a lot) and in keeping with the idea of flash (short short fiction) I created two 'stories' out of Hemingway's six words. One piece is traditional and one is experimental and I hope they both are sufficient for a story to be 'seen'. Here they are:



FIVE HANDWRITTEN CARDS IN A SHOP WINDOW (Handwriting the same)

1) For Sale: baby shoes, never worn.

2) Home Sweet Home - missing all the 'sweet'. Looking to share with tenant of a kindly disposition and gentle words. Terms and conditions negotiable.

3) Genuine18 carat gold wedding band - no longer required. All offers considered.

4) Heart: used once, needs mending. Answers to the name of Ed. Barren women only may apply.

5) Baby name: never used. Rolls around the tongue, like hard candy, tastes sharp like lemons or onions, and brings tears. Will consider exchange for some other name.

And flash story number two:

ENOUGH (with a debt to Hemingway or whoever)

"For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn"

He held the card at arm's length, reading over what he'd written. He wondered if it was enough, if six words told the whole story of those shoes - Emmy's shoes, small as a doll's, and he dreams sometimes, sees Emmy in the dark of dreaming and her impossible first steps, the ones she might have taken, her tiny feet, soft as snow or clouds, and slipped into those shoes. He hears the hesitant dream-click and click of her breathless step and step, moving towards his outstretched arms or moving away, his hands clutching at only dark.

"For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn"

He set the card down on the kitchen table. He wrapped the shoes in pink tissue paper and laid them together, heel to toe in the box and the lid placed on top so they were in the sudden dark once more - another box-dark like the one where Emmy danced in breathless dreams or slept and did not dream, not ever.

"For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn"

He wondered if those six words were enough.

Thursday 3 March 2011

Flash Example 1

(This is a flashed piece written in about twenty minutes. A once-upon-a-time writer friend that I was sometimes eager to impress was running a workshop for writers new to flash fiction and she posted up the prompt 'Tattooed With Mermaids'. I stumbled across her post and wrote this for her.)


TATTOOED WITH MERMAIDS
He didn’t like the sea, not really. Was sick on boats and couldn’t swim, that’s what he said.
Same as fishermen, I told him. Some of em don’t swim. I know, it don’t make sense, but I heard that.
He was nodding, a glaze to his sea-blue eyes that told me he wasn't really listening. But he was interested. Not in the things I had to say, but in me. He kept his hand on my waist, under my top, his fingers stroke stroking the skin.
So if you don’t like the sea, why? I asked him.
He shrugged.
His shirt sleeves were pushed up to the elbows and he was tattooed with mermaids, inked in blue and green with red nipples and coiling fish tails. There were dozens of em, swimming in a shoal, from his wrist to the shirt cuff, and disappearing there, up the rest of his arm, maybe.
I seen one before, or two, sitting proud, hands in the hair and breasts thrusting, like girls in magazines. But this was different. He had a whole sea-catch of them, like he had sunk his arms in a bucket of fish, right up to the elbows, and they came out covered in the silver scales of cod and sardine, and no skin to be seen, ‘cept the backs of his hands and his fingers.
How many?
He couldn’t say. Got em when he was drunk mostly, and he was drunk a lot, he said, his head swimming, the ground tipping and all sense drowning. If he flexed his muscles they moved, some, like they was in water, the way things seen through water change shape, rippling.
Don’t you ever fancy something else, like a heart with a sword through it? I seen that on a man’s arm and a curl of ribbon unfurling across the red with his girlfriend’s name written on it, only she wasn’t his girlfriend no more, just someone he fucked, used to.
He laughed at that.
If you was to guess, how many? I said.
You could count them if you like, he said, finishing his drink. It felt like a line, when he said it, one he’d use to catch other fish than me. I got mermaids swimming all over, he added, and winked so everyone in the bar could see, and kissed me on the forehead, like I was a child.
He was right about all over. I stopped counting at a hundred and ten, not sure if I had counted some twice. They were everywhere. Twisting into every pouch of him, pooling over his chest, and across his back, no two the same, their tails flicking every which way, some swimming towards his neck and others diving down into his shorts.
Jesus, I said. He was passed out on the bed.
Aside from the mermaids, he wasn’t much of a catch. His name was Lou or Lewis. We drank him towards another two inked bare-breasted fish tails, fucked once, and then I moved on, to deeper waters.