Random Thoughts Part 7

SCOTUS sketch : last day of 2012 term (Art Lien)

 

The Supreme Court of the United States has always been a fickle bitch. Or at least their opinions have. This past week has been no exceptions. On the one hand, they ruled legislation regarding gay marriage vis-a-vis DOMA okay. Which makes all of us cheer. Well, not those that think homosexuality is bad, bad, bad. And marriage between one man and one woman evil and contrary to the bible- notwithstanding biblical marriages of more than one person, sexual congress with handmaidens of the wives, bedwarmers, etc. And on the other hand, struck down legislation designed to keep voting districts from unnecessarily preventing minorities be represented at the state and federal levels. Which is weird since we still have racism and one of the primary ways to perpetuate institutional racism is vis-a-vis voting and elected officials. People in power tend to want to stay in power and draw districting lines in a manner to prevent minority votes from being a majority in many areas. The thing is both these issues sprung from legislation. And on the one hand, SCOTUS said legislation was okay and proper, then on the other hand said legislation wasn’t okay and wasn’t proper. So they used Congresses ability to make legislation to uphold one law and then said in the other case it wasn’t okay for Congress to make legislation. Strange. Bizarre. And totally at odds with what happened in both cases. You can’t have it both ways. Either Congress can legislate shit or they can’t.

 

As more time passes, more plagiarist are being ferreted out. Seriously? WTF? Teresa Mummert has a whole diagram to show how one person has plagiarized several books under various names and through various social media outlets has been promoting those sames books and/or leaving positive reviews for their alter-ego characters. Either this person grew up in a con- running family or has serious split personality disorder. Maybe both. So many books being ripped off. Get a clue. The internet which allows this to occur so easily also helps to find these stupid bastards just as easily. In the time it took for this person to set up social media accounts, upload books, leave reviews, etc., they could’ve written a book and sold it. Like an original one. But my view of plagiarist still stands. Plagiarist plagiarize because they are lazy, stupid and weak. The lights are on but nobody’s home. You can’t wash off stupid. And BTW, what this person did wasn’t smart or showed intelligence, it showed cunning. Cunning is sooooo not the same as intelligence or having an original thought. It is something vastly different. Vastly.

 

Wendy Davis as the nation watched on.

 

Watching Wendy Davis’s  filibuster in Texas against a bill which would severely curtail a woman’s right to abortion made me a little happy this week. Not only did the bill not get a chance to be voted on, it showed me again why I like democracy.  Seriously. Then the Republicans tried to lie and alter the record. But, internet is a truth seekers friend. Within moments, the real record had been screen captured and put up showing the slicky boy moves of the Republicans. Which just goes to show, ain’t nothing cheaters won’t do to cheat.  I don’t care if you are pro choice or pro life, you need to allow the most inclusive legislation so that people, especially the ones who don’t hold the same views as those in power, can express their beliefs and not be stifled. And abortion is just such an area which lends itself to this philosophy. Just because you are Christian and believe abortion is wrong doesn’t mean you get to shove that viewpoint down others’ throats. That would be like a Hindu making you not be able to kill your beef cows because they are sacred and forcing that provision into law. Or – insert religion here, forcing Jewish people or Shintoist or, or, or…to- insert a act which is vile and oppressive to Jews, Shintoist, etc. etc. etc.,  here. And then do this again for every religion under the sun. Seriously, stop the madness. Not every body believes in the same religious things as you. Make it so you have a choice to follow your beliefs as well as them having a choice to follow their beliefs. This course of action is LOGICAL. Really it is.

Conventional wisdom says I shouldn’t post controversial political views in my blog. Kiss my ass. My blog. My opinions. My voice. We don’t have to share the same beliefs. We just have to respect that we can each have ’em. No matter what. DIVERSITY- try it.

That is all.

Plagiarism

So there was a big brouhaha this past weekend when Lorelei James found out that @AlisonGilmore had ripped off her entire book and put it up as her fanfic and then to a blog. AlisonGilmore claimed she was writing the book chapter by chapter. She wasn’t. She was and is a thief of the highest order. She ripped off someone else’s work and claimed it as her own. There was a huge internet smack down. HUGE. Like by several people all getting into the act and it brought her blog pages down and she ended up shutting off her twitter account. She now has a new twitter account and has made it private. Only the internet isn’t “private.” Not at all. The internet is very public and is forever.

Limecello posted a blog about the internet takedown.  As did Rilzy on her blog. They both have several pictures of the images capturing the twitter logs and the blog and the subsequent takedown. They have a, forever on the internet for all time and for anyone to see and read,  blog entry about the blatant plagiarism AlisonGilmore engaged in when she ripped off Lorelei’s book. The book was ALL JACKED UP.

Plagiarist aren’t new. They are the necessary evil when you are an award winning author. Only the internet makes it so much easier to find them and ferret them out. Like ridiculously easy. Almost as easy as it makes for someone to do the ripping off. So the internet is both a sword and a shield. It cuts and protects all at the same time.

What it can’t do is make stupid people smarter. Or people who can’t write, write. And that’s what it boils down to. Plagiarist are inherently lazy, stupid and weak. No talent is involved when you steal someone’s ideas and storylines. Word for frickin’ word.

AlisonGilmore sent a tweet that said in effect- writing romance, erotic romance and erotica is for talentless dweebs. I won’t go into why writing GOOD smex is hard- almost as hard as writing comedy. But what I will go into is my response to AlisonGilmore’s talentless dweeb comments. My tweet is below. I bolded what I wrote in response to her tweet. What I wrote is true. And it was a kick-ass response to her assertions.

 

D.R. Slaten ‏@DRSlaten 14 Jun

Plagiarism is for people who can’t think. @laurahunsaker @megantgrimm @loreleijames smut is for people who can’t write.

Rinse and Repeat

So I was thinking about genre fiction and all the tropes, cliches and repeats that go on with it. There are so many stereotypes when it comes to books and writings.

Like Literary fiction is by smart peeps for smart peeps. And it is usually about nothing. Nothing happens. It’s just a telling.

In Romance, there are certain story lines that get used over and over again. Like secret babies or marriages of convenience or boss-secretary. There are certain things within the story line that gets reused like dish rag. Like virgins who are old enough not to be or motorcycle gang members who are really misunderstood heroes.

In SF/Fantasy, there is usually a quest. To find something or someone without which or without whom the world would end as they know it.

Nothing in fiction, or in real life for that matter, is new. It has been done a thousand times before. But for some reason, novels cycle these in great numbers. Like a thousand books about rock stars. Or a gazillion books about millionaires who fall in love with broke waitresses. Or orbs that must be found at the end of the quest.

I get that repeating verbatim, aka word for word, another person’s words is plagiarism. But what about all these recycled and repeated themes, tropes and story lines? No, I am not saying that using such is considered plagiarism. What I am saying that using such is a necessary part of writing fiction. I bet google searching will find your book has already been written. Your story has already been told. But, and this is a big but, I hope that you have written it better. That in your telling, something fresh and something new emerges. Even though it has been done a thousand times before. I also hope that your characters are the ones that are memorable. Fresh, new and defines that particular trope, cliche or theme.

I like reading genre fiction. I see the patterns in the writing. But I like it anyway. What I don’t like is laziness on the part of the writer, falling back on the trope and not making it theirs. Even if a theme has been written a thousand times, I appreciate that certain something that takes that trope and makes it their bitch. Now that’s talent. To take something old and make it new.