Innermost Thought

After much soul searching and a public mea culpa, I am slowly getting over my "Popcorn Dragon" mishap. At first I was afraid to go back into the box which contained all of my earlier work. Perhaps all of the stories contained therein were not from my childhood imagination but instead merely a criticial review or retelling of something I'd heard or read earlier. Who was it that said there are no longer any original ideas? That may be true but there is a limit to which someone can steal, copy, or even borrow. Maybe I never wrote my own stories but instead lived a scholastic life full of mere book reports. (Nobody can say I'm not dramatic though as this blog can most certainly attest.)

I'm just about ready to venture back into "the box" and pick out one of my other favorite stories...guaranteed to be mine...I hope. Rest assured, I will most certainly vet it through the fine upstanding references of Sir Google and Reverend Yahoo before I publish it as my own. It's also my mom's favorite story that I wrote.

In a weird twist, it seems that one of my nefarious former business partners continues to take advantage of her former association with me and is now plagiarizing me on one of her companies' "Diaries". She reposted as her own an edited version of a blog entry I let the company borrow from my original blog about an event that I produced without either of them. I shouldn't be surprised. Much of the business we shared and all of the events or productions about which they still publicly brag were not instigated by either of the two who still own the brand of our former company. In fact, on most of the events or productions about which they publicly brag, the two who still own the company at one time or another backed out of the project, company, or did their level best to cancel it...even our ace in the hole. The Ann Richards book launch about which all of my former partners and I are so proud took a threat from me to go it alone outside of our company to get them to think, "Whoa. I might want to stick with this." I think the NFBs are glad they did as it's just about all they tout whenever asked about their past successes. In their defense, we did a great job and it was very successful for us.

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Perhaps it is, but still I can't help feeling a little disrespected. I find it ironic that a person who is trying to stake out a new career as a writer so blatantly and wantonly plagiarizes another. Perhaps she should be considered more of a "reseller" or "independent distributor" like those sad people who post ugly signs for Herbalife?

In reality, I think my "NFBs" (Nefarious Former Business partners) are trolling old blogs because they are desperate for content in the two or so years in which they abandoned the company and its interests. They didn't write any content of their own because they simply weren't there and that doesn't look good on the balance sheet.

And as for me...I'm doing my level best to feel flattered.

Here's the original blog I posted in November 2004

If you know me, you'll know where to find the imitation in the Archives of January 2005.