this was for fun. Apparently, I may be very wrong. As tonight, this is an email/comment I received on this Flashback Friday idea. When I was informed, as can be seen in my comments section, that I may be stepping on some toes, as below:
Karin at HeartSongs (http://three-part-harmony.com/heartsongs/) started the original Flashback Friday quite some time ago. I’m sure she’d have no problem with you participating, but if I were her, I wouldn’t be real pleased to see someone else claiming my idea as their own. Just saying…
I responded honestly that this just came to me, that I’m new to this, and have never seen this person or her site. And that I would contact the potential “originator” of said idea. And then received this:
Well Allison, to some it is a game, and to others it is a hobby. Please, do visit her and inform her that you intend to take her idea and pass it off as something you just happened to think of months after she did. Should you decide to do your own version of Thursday 13 as well, I’m sure the blogger who created the idea will be equally as pleased. It is not a competition, but you will find, since you are new to this hobby, that bloggers tend to take something called a copyright very seriously when it applies to their creative writing ideas.
Merry Christmas to you and yours as well.
I just want to say that I’m here for fun. That whatever has “happened” to occur to me, actually has, and that I do indeed, credit Miss Leanne with all her Thursday 13 fun-ness. I link right up to her, and mention her frequently. No attempt to steal here. I like participating in all this stuff, and would love to have others hang with me as I walk through this new “hobby”. I see it all as a great outlet for women, everywhere, no matter what their backgrounds, age, history, race, religion. We can have a voice. We can meet others. And in theory, I sure thought it was about support, and fun. Not copywriting infringement and “rights”. Why do I suddenly have an urge to slam my locker closed and tell my best girlfriends not to talk to her anymore? Is this highschool? Or is it a fantastic forum for women to get to know eachother and share a bit of life…oh! Do I hear the bell? I might be late for our quiz in bio today…gotto make sure I make that!
I would love good, fun traffic. I would love “popularity” in this funny blog world. I won’t pretend that’s not fun. But this stuff? I left it behind 20 years ago, and hoped most of us did, as well. And Leanne? I love your idea, and that you offer a great idea to link up to. What is wrong with sharing the ideas? Sharing the traffic? Sharing the fun, whether it be game, hobby or much needed outlet?
What I thought was a place to share what I feel, to be excited that people may read what I feel, to vent my wannabe writer-ness, seems to have become a slanted sorority of sorts, like the clique of girls I simultaneously loathed and longed to be, when I was 16. More than half my lifetime ago. Certain blogs seem to be able to dictate what the rest of us do. Suddenly, silly silly ideas like a Flashback Friday becomes proprietary rights. What? Is this something revolutionary no one else could have thought of? Are we kidding ourselves? Is there money changing hands that I don’t know about? We’re not putting food on the table here, we’re playing, or sharing. Or we would like to kindle some relationship, even if we may never meet in person. Moreena’s participation in this blog stuff has garnered her blood donors, gift givers and life time supporters for her very sick little girl. Running2ks has been blessed to visit her, and donate blood herself…many of you out there have participated in this walk with Moreena. And not turned this into some sort of infantile popularity contest.
If it means I have to take sides, worry about “stealing” copyrights (about which I would never care, this is pretty public afterall), or contacting any of the 50 some odd million people out there with blogs to make sure I didn’t duplicate one of their ideas, just to have an outlet I love, then I quit. I have been proved that this is all false. Just stupid. I’ll just open a Word document and type away til my heart’s content. I hoped I’d finally found a spot that didn’t run like middle school cheerleaders. Maybe I was wrong.
