An apology, in the loosest sense of the word.
It’s been a really, really long time since I made a personal post here, and I think it’s extremely overdue. I’ve always been one of those people who needs to let her thoughts out somewhere, and for some reason, this has been the only place I can really let those thoughts surface.
In regard to my last post at both my personal journal and that I (admittedly, mistakenly) posted to the comm, I just want to say that it was never intended to offend. It was written by both Elise and myself at a time when we were simply just…at a loss as to what we should or could do about how frustrated, angry, and discouraged we were. The vague accusations we made (yes, we do admit to making them) were, however, not meant because we are cowardly or didn’t have the balls to flat out say what exactly had been taken from us and by whom, we were simply attempting to have a little more tact than that. I mean, clearly, that effort backfired on us and there’s nothing really to do about that now, but I wanted to clear my thoughts and my name to at least those who follow me here because in a place where I once took the most solace, I can’t stand the thought of some of the best people I know thinking the worst of me because of an unfortunate, wrong order of words that I chose to use.
When Elise and I got further into the writing of The Bare Necessities together, we really needed some input from some other authors that we respected and trusted for their opinions and knowledge of good, accurate writing. We threw around ideas with several people and, I’m sorry if this disappoints, but we are still not the kind of people who name names. There was one particular instance in which someone had access to our unwritten ideas and brainstorms, and then we later saw them in another story not credited to us. We approached them about it, and they said that they had, in fact, used the ideas (not in so many words, of course) but, what could we really do at that point? We had spoken with the person we felt had used our original stuff, we contacted a mod, and still we felt we saw our ideas being used before we could write them ourselves. Many have asked why we chose the harsh method of making allegations at the comm, and the answer is that, well…we weren’t really sure what else we could do.
Our intention was, truly and honestly, to eloquently state why we wanted to take a break from the comm for those who might have been expecting updates to TBN. We also wanted to let out our frustration and let people know that it’s just…not okay. I agree with what many people said, that this should have been discreetly posted to the personal journal only; however, what’s done is done now. The only thing to do is stand by how we feel, and apologize sincerely to anyone who may have been hurt by what we said. We are in no way saying that every author is to be called into question. Every author in our fandom has a beautiful, talented voice, and we want every single one of those voices to be heard and heard loudly.
We were contacted and asked by the mods to disable comments on the original post after it had been frozen by them so that they could gather their thoughts and collectively decide what they felt and wanted to say on the matter. The way we wrote it didn’t leave much room for fairness on the other side and we agree with them that every opinion has a place and we wanted those both in agreement of us AND in opposition to have a place to discuss it with no sides being taken (i.e. the new mod post regarding this subject.)
The bottom line is that we love what we do. We love writing these stories, we love the characters we interpret from the amazing writers who created them in the first place, and we love sharing all of that with everyone here and seeing their interpretations as well. There are, indeed, only about ten or fifteen ways to write a baby story, or a marriage story, or a honeymoon story, or a medical story-you get what I’m saying. There’s no way to avoid converting something you once read into your own words and making it something new. But there is a line that shouldn’t be crossed when it comes to intentionally using someone’s work and passing it off as your own.
I know that there are so many people at the comm, and maybe even on my own friends list, that have a lot less respect for me now because of the way the original post was written. And I accept that; I don’t respect the way those things were said either. But I do stand by the way I feel, the way Elise feels, the fierce need to protect our creation.
If anything, this expression of feeling and the resulting backlash have inspired both of us to write, constantly, separately and together, and I can’t feel badly for what hasn’t come naturally to me in a very long time.
Expect to see me around. At least at my own personal journal, I’m coming back and I have a thousand and five things to say and feel and express however I very well please-because it is mine.
Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.