THE BUSINESS OF BEING DEVIOUS

This week’s blog will be regarding unscrupulous people who see nothing wrong about pilfering ideas from others in order to get what they want. When I say this I mean sneaking questions here and there in a nonchalant way and then using the ideas obtained for their own use.
There are many of those around; some of them have pretended to be friends or at least have shown an interest in what we have to say and later used that information for their own purposes. These underhanded, devious, two-timing, cunning people that use slyness in front of a façade of camaraderie should have no place in our lives.
In the publishing business that is something that could happen more often than what we’d like to hear. I’d dare to compare this behavior with plagiarizing someone else’s writing.
This case happened in the publishing business, but it could also happen in our daily lives. There is a saying, “With friends like those, who needs enemies?”… That it is oh! so true. Byzantine behavior has no room to operate among those who have put their heart and soul towards a goal just to see it shot down by someone else’s greed and the false idea that ‘bigger is better”.

Placing big names on the back cover of a book, or well-known logos showing well-known names doesn’t mean anything really, just that the author is paying big bucks towards the subscription on that particular well-known company. A fine silk scarf adorned with Italian designs draws big dollars at Fifth Avenue boutiques, but stitch a “Made in Taiwan” label into the hem, and it suddenly has all the cachet of a K-Mart blue-light special.
It could easily happen among authors. Suppose you are in a writers’ group, and they start talking about ideas, so you, not even thinking that Benedict Arnold is present, tell everybody about this grand idea you have for a story. Lo and behold, sometime later your idea becomes a finished story – one that was not written by you! You wonder how in the world that happened and probably would never think about one of those people in your friendly writers’ group.

Open your eyes wide, friend, and don’t give away information that may hurt you later. Protect your writing and your ideas and don’t allow underhanded people use them as their own.
It’s a Bad Day at Black Rock, but the shootout isn’t over.