j p lundstrom wrote:I don't know if it's just me, but I feel like some of the things I've written seem to be showing up in other people's work. A tiny idea here, a turn of phrase there... I know I'm just beginning, so my stuff's not all that great, which makes it harder to take. I work long and hard to put just the right words together to mean exactly what I want to say. Am I paranoid? Does this mean I don't really have an original idea in my head. and everybody else is saying the same thing? I have started a couple of reviews and been stung to see exactly my words in someone else's story. Or am I unconsciously repeating what I've read somewhere else? Are they? How can one tell? Does it even matter?
JP...This should be easy for you to prove, just check the date the 'suspect' writer posted their work with your words and compare it with your posting dates. I would also copy what I felt had been lifted from my work and paste it in a word document. If the writer seems to continually lift phrases from your work you can confront them with data. It would be helpful, too, in proving whether you're the lifter and not the liftee.
I don't know that you are paranoid. That's why documenting is so important in matters like these, you take a look at the whole picture and that way you can tell if you're imagining things or not.
Of course it matters if someone is using your hard work. About ten years ago I belonged to an online writing group that was part of Yahoo groups. So it was nothing like this site. Loosely organized and ran by a moderator who was using the group to hook up with women, we pretty much did what we wanted. Someone wanted a good example of erotica and so some of us sat down and wrote sex scenes as erotic as we could make them. I think I got seven hundred words out, posted it and thought nothing else about it. A week later a member invited people to read her blog, and there a few blog entries down was my silly sex story with HER byline.
I immediately got an account with that blogging site, put her picture on it with the word THIEF written across it, and blogged under the name: Jane the thief. I blogged about her taking my story every hour on the hour for twenty-four hours until she emailed me that she was taking down the story. She wasn't repentant, though, she said I should feel flattered that someone stole my work and posted it as their own. To say the least I wasn't flattered and to tell you the truth, I have never felt that angry at anyone before or since.
It was my work and she took credit. No matter that it was a silly short story not very well written, it was my intellectual property. So even if it's a few words or just an idea you had, it still belongs to you and it matters a lot that someone claimed them as their own...
I hope that helped...and thanks for being the first to post in Fight Club's forums!! dags 
(I hope you guys get winks, because otherwise I'm gonna be in big trouble soon in this group!)
