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So apparently while I was watching the increasingly surreal plagiarism mess, there was a big fannish racism debate on LJ as well. Anyway, the latter has at least led to some good advice.
The former was more fun to watch, but the only advice out of it is "don't hire a dodgy ghostwriter to help you with your straight-to-vanity-press novel, just so you can get into the papers as a writer who triumphed over disability and family tragedies; but if you do, and it turns out the ghost-writer blatantly stole the parts he added to your novel, don't a) deny responsibility, while b) threatening the people who pointed out the plagiarism with legal and c) magical retribution (because some of them are lawyers and/or Wiccans, and can tell you're bluffing), and d) playing up your health problems for sympathy (because some of them are also disabled and they still know right from wrong)."
Addn- Also there's the Doctorow/Leguin argument, which is discussed far more calmly and thoughtfully here than anywhere else I've seen. I'm really sorry this one blew up, because I linked to BoingBoing's now-controversial reposting of Leguin's piece myself when it was up, with some comment like "Yay Leguin!," and I would never have come across it otherwise.
I hate being human sometimes.
The former was more fun to watch, but the only advice out of it is "don't hire a dodgy ghostwriter to help you with your straight-to-vanity-press novel, just so you can get into the papers as a writer who triumphed over disability and family tragedies; but if you do, and it turns out the ghost-writer blatantly stole the parts he added to your novel, don't a) deny responsibility, while b) threatening the people who pointed out the plagiarism with legal and c) magical retribution (because some of them are lawyers and/or Wiccans, and can tell you're bluffing), and d) playing up your health problems for sympathy (because some of them are also disabled and they still know right from wrong)."
Addn- Also there's the Doctorow/Leguin argument, which is discussed far more calmly and thoughtfully here than anywhere else I've seen. I'm really sorry this one blew up, because I linked to BoingBoing's now-controversial reposting of Leguin's piece myself when it was up, with some comment like "Yay Leguin!," and I would never have come across it otherwise.
I hate being human sometimes.
