…on Plagiarism and Disgust
Posted on June 15, 2013 by rilzy
I am angry,
I am very angry.
I am blowing a gasket, a fuse or any of the other metaphors you can come up with for red with anger. I chuckle at this as I can’t technically turn red since I’m black but you get the point.
This evening started off pretty well. I’m still working on my practice writing in an attempt to propel my Muse from her awkward teenage, acne-filled, bracing wearing years to a more mature young adult when Laurell K Hamilton retweeted a tweet that stopped me dead in my tracks. The original tweet was made by Lorelei James who complained of someone , Alison Gilmore, passing off one of her books published in 2009 as their own. Alison used a website to upload the book one chapter at a time. She was originally a member of http://www.fanfiction.net where she stated she was writing One Tree Hill fan fictions based on Haley and Nate. Except, the works were plagiarized. Here’s what her Fan Fiction profile looked like. Note the Twitter account it is linked to:
When she was found out (at least as it relates to Lorelei’s book, Alison set up a Weebly account and continued to plagiarize there. I was disgusted and shocked at once and decided to snoop because it just seemed too brazen, too insensitive, too callous to be true. First I followed the link given to the website: http://www.ihadthestrangestdream.weebly.com (the website has since been taken down – but more on that later.) Note, there was a link Alison’s Twitter Page directly to this site:
When I checked the website, this is what I was greeted with:
You would see that I highlighted the link to the twitter page @AlisonGilmore where she says that she can be contacted. She says “Hello. I’m just a girl who loves to write. It humbles me that you enjoy it so much”. She has two stories up: Temptation and one called A Bitch Called Fate. The titles may be the only things she “wrote” as both of the works were plagiarized. How do I know this? Well first I pulled up: A Bitch Called Fate. Here is a screenshot from Alison’s now defunct website:
Then I compared it with a screen shot from Lorelei’s book ‘All Jacked Up‘ from my Kindle:
As you can see she copies Lorelei James’ novel WORD FOR WORD except for the change of name. She didn’t even change the flavour of the lip gloss to vanilla or something. Here is the truly sickening part. She created a review section to the website where she accepted compliments on SOMEONE ELSE’S WORK!
If you think that’s bad, do you see the second book on the website? The one she’s called ‘Temptation’. This was also plagiarized. The book is actually called: Beyond Right or Wrong by Renea Taylor. Here’s the proof. First a screenshot taken from Alison’s website:
And here’s a screenshot of the preview of Renea Taylor’s book from Amazon.
Thanks to the amazing power of the internet Alison was found out very easily. But did she apologize? No. She was defiant in her denial and actually took cheap shots at Lorelei. I’m a writer. I might not be the best writer in the world as I’m still honing my craft but writers put their ALL into their novels. The least she could have done was acknowledge the frustration and hurt she caused. This is what she did instead:
She denied involvement and made snide remarks about Lorelei’s genre. Also, she accused us of bullying. She claims she isn’t the same person but we followed the twitter page right from her site. If that wasn’t enough… look at the Twitter profile photo in the photo directly above. Now scroll up to the first photo I showed with the Twitter page linking to the now defunct website. It is the same.
In addition to being really angered I was really happy with the support that all the writers showed for Lorelei James. We all understand how precious our work is and how personal. We all understand that what this silly, little girl (who read for a Literature and Writing Degree ironically) did was deeply invasive and just plain out wrong.
I take comfort in the fact that no matter how long it takes me to hone my craft, I would never resort to stealing someone’s work. I write because I have stories in me that need to come out. I don’t write for recognition or fame which is clearly what Alison Gilmore was after. This is what distinguishes writers from frauds. This is what distinguishes Lorelei James and Renea Taylor from Alison Gilmore.
Tschuss.
PS: She’s stolen an entire night of hanging out (read: writing) Zoe and Liam from me. You must then understand how angered I am. The great this is that the site came down. The good guys won this round.
Rilzy
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Posted in The Daily Java (My Life and Other Things) and tagged alison gilmore, don't steal, lorelei james, plagiarism, rant, renea taylor. Bookmark the permalink.
ABOUT RILZY
A law student who much prefers spending her time writing books than writing case briefs.
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