Posts by Emma Hart
-
Almost anyone who writes historical fiction is going to cut and paste, tweak, and put it into the voice (or thoughts) of a character.
Actually, what Jolisa said on the radio was that (from memory, hope I'm not being misleading) is that she talked to other historical writers and they said no, what you do is do your reading, and then make sure those texts are off your desk before you start writing, specifically so you don't use the exact same words, but put them in your own.
-
This is Hadyn's blog so he can write about what he likes, but
Ha, dude, I told you this would happen. Sort of.
-
If I said yes, would you be offended, would I then have to apologize?
I have been called a bitch by some* of my closest friends.
And I nearly said, "I'm very hard to offend" but the last person I said that to subsequently spent about an hour on the balcony in Tabac trying to prove me wrong. I wasn't offended, I just thought he was a Very Big Male Chicken, which is not the kind of thing you can really apologise for.
*Alright, all. -
The only way this makes sense to me is if you'd read the opposite of what I wrote. I thought I'd quite clearly opted for both.
Gee, sorry David, I read your comment as a sarcastic criticism of people for abusing you. I guess you wrote those first three paragraphs as a celebration of our discourse.
You did, however, ignore my point about what plagiarism actually IS. Nobody here has a problem with, for instance, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, because Seth Grahame-Smith is not taking credit for Jane Austen's writing. That book doesn't pretend to be something it isn't. Do you get that, or would you prefer to keep pretending people are saying things they're clearly not?
-
Mmm, see... If I should, say, use the word 'niggardly', and somebody listening became offended because they believed it to be a racist slur, I wouldn't feel any obligation to apologise for their offense. Does that make me a bitch?
(The answer is of course, no, that was all those other things.)
-
I thought editors were the unicorns of publishing -- legendary beasts that you can only catch if you can rustle up a virgin of unimpeachable piety from God only knows where who's willing to sit around in a fairy glade until her arse turns blue with cold? :)
I'm fairly sure this is in fact the exact opposite of how you get an editor.
Not that I mind, I myself am perfectly capable of abusing people I don't know based on scant evidence, usually when drunk.
*cough*
for example that dreadful Peter Jackson, but there's more to film than that shit.
Keir: You're not a fan? Good.
Dish. Take. It's a both or neither situation.
what is it about that nature that makes plagiarism anathema in a way that it isn't in painting?
Yeah, man. If I wanna paint something that looks exactly like a Goldie, nobody's going to have a problem with that.
It's kind of simple, really. This is about taking credit for a skill of writing, when what one has actually demonstrated is the skill of cutting and pasting. Similar themes, similar ideas, artefacts of shared culture - NOT considered plagiarism.
-
Best apology I've ever received: "You're right, I was wrong. I'm sorry." Simple, to the point, and takes the wind out of the sails of anyone gearing up for an argument.
Yeah, pretty much. Mine, from an ex-boyfriend: "I'm sorry for, y'know, everything."
-
I got curious and had a look on GoogleEarth. Has anybody got any idea why they built that Loop road to nowhere?
Well, it goes to the port. It's the route the sheep trucks take. When I was four I rode down it on Toddles, my giraffe.
The police came and made me go home. Not for the last time.
But why they built it as a loop, and part of a 900m State Highway, I don't know.
-
Car parks, Parking meters and parking fines are just a way for the Council to make some dosh. If they were serious about traffic management they would do more for public transport. Timaru is no different.
To be fair, Timaru did actually remove all the parking meters from the main street.
-
This all reminds me that I once had a warrant issued for my arrest over a parking ticket I never knew I had.
My brother got a parking ticket in Temuka. Given he spent half the year working overseas travelling between often remote farms, we had bailiffs at my mother's door before he knew he had it.
All I can assume is that the parking company had managed to write down the wrong rego, and matched the rego to car description at a later time. They couldn't produce the original ticket. I wouldn't be so crass to suggest that it is their practice to manufacture bills for parking tickets in the hope that unsuspecting punters will forward a cheque without checking.
Nor would I. But the same thing did happen to my mother. Fortunately we could prove where she was, which was not the city six hundred kilometres away where she'd been ticketed. Also the women in my family are not short on ovarian fortitude. But I can imagine a lot of other people would have taken the far less aggravating route and just paid it.