Urgent Message (6/4/09)

As I am sure many of you have realized by now that a) both The Wall and The Do's and Don'ts of Cruising have been removed from the site and b.) there is suddenly an Epidemic Afflicting many FP Writers. What does this mean? Many FictionPress authors (those who I aspire to be like, and including myself) have been plagiarized. Some of those who have stolen our stories have kept it the exactly the same (in fact, the "author" from Quizilla who stole mine hadn't even bothered to delete my author's notes at the end of the chapters) while other "authors" have changed character names at mininum and minor plot changes at the most. In either case, plagiarism is still plagiarism and it strikes me as shocking that people would stoop so low. There is a reason, in my opinion, why schools teach that plagiarism is wrong (those who do steal either missed class that day or failed to pay attention) and that is because it is ILLEGAL.

So what does this mean for me and many of the authors whose work has been stolen? I am sure you an see what direction I chose after finding out last night what was going on: I took my work down. I can picture you, the reader, sighing and demanding why I would choose not to post anymore. Why am I wronging you when you weren't in the wrong in the first place? But thing is though, I feel a little violated. As if someone has walked up, and without asking whether or not I'm okay with them taking my work--not that I would ever be okay with it but still--stole a part of me that I have worked months on to make.

I want to try and publish both The Wall and The Do's and Don'ts of Cruising (after massive edits of course) and I can't risk them being stolen again. The simplest answer for me is to just take them down, which I really, really didn't want to do. When I had heard earlier this week of the massive Plagiarism attacks, I was willing to try and keep posting my stories. If you look at the bottom of my page, you can see that I had even decided to make a sequel to The Do's and Don'ts of Cruising (Katya's story) and it was going to be great--funny, and slightly fill of drama and a guy I am sure is both hotter and more drool worthy of both Jeremy and Garrett. But I can't do so with the knowledge that also might get stolen. I still plan to write the story in hope of having a publishing company book look at Kat, Katya and Anya's story as a trilogy, but I will not be posting it here.

So I have decided to take them down. However, because I can't imagine leaving my readers with nothing, I will be posting one-shots frequently enough and I will also post short stories (between 2-5 chapters each) that I will do for fun and to show that I still love all of you that have ever reviewed or simply read my stories. I'm sorry that the actions of a few people have ruined it for everyone else, but unless FictionPress changes the way they have their website (I have sent them an email explaining this new Plagiarism Dilemma and requested that they either put the Copyright at the bottom of the pages again, or more preferably, make a site that people can not copy and paste and steal what is not theirs) I will not be posting any full length stories in the near future.

I hope you can understand where I am coming from. And as a plus, I'm not going to be disappearing anywhere: I will still be reviewing and reading stories and hoping to stop this Plague of "Authors".

I hope y'all have a great day, and thanks for reading this massive note.

-Mia

Name: Maria Alkmini Nickname: Mia Age: 18

Favorite Authors/ Books: Any of Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark-Hunter books, though all of them are great (for those of you who like vampire books, with a twist, this is for you), Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen (which has got to be a classic), any of Sabrina Jeffries and Julia Quinn's books (history romance), A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson (soo funny lol, especially his fear of bears), a few Stephen King books (he's crazy lol), the Nerd series by Vicki Lewis Thompson (hilarious, check these out), The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (so sad, but so good) and sooo many more but if I listed them out I'd take up my entire profile.

Quotes: (I'll put some more up at another time lol, but I think this one is really true for writers in general)

"There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story, you can never quite tell where they'll take you..." ~Miss Potter

Also: Check out ihrtbks' Deserve More website. All the stories that don't get enough recognition, but are amazing despite the lack of reviews (cough, The New Student is on there 0.0 ). You can find out more information and the link is on ihrtbks' profile. Check it out!!

And these are the stories that I'm currently working on:

The Wall: complete.

It's the place where all the hot jocks hang out between classes. They are so stupid. Except for one of them. And he's decided that it'd be fun to make my life a living Hell. Just friggin' great. R&R please!

The Do's and Don't's of Cruising: In progress.

The point of a cruise is to meet new people, wear sexy bikinis around sexy guys, try new things (snorkeling!) and even hang out with your older sister who is paying for the lovely trip. What I did not expect was for her fiance to come tagging along as an early honeymoon and with him...his shy younger brother who also happens to be valedictorian of my class and now sharing my room. Wonderful.

10 Steps to Falling in Love: Coming Soon (Title Subject to Change).

Katya is a cynic. Oh, she'd like to claim otherwise, but she's probably the only virgin at her college. Okay, maybe that's not true because there are rumors circling campus that the varsity hockey boys are on the hunt...for freshmen virgins. The contest is simple: each player must seduce as many never-been touched girls as possible by the end of the first semester for the win. Unfortunately for Katya, she fits right in that group. Fortunately for her, however, cynism does have its perks. Falling in love is supposedly easy...except for when you're falling in love with a hockey player that's been set on the prowl for your virgin blood. (Sequel to The Do's and Don'ts of Cruising).