Things you never see
black people doing in horror movies thing #6
Get mauled by a pet tiger.
Back in high school I wrote a smart ass report for my English class. Recognizing my talent my English teacher came to see me while I was sitting in detention to talk to me about intellectual property. Back then I wasn’t thinking about growing up and becoming a writer my biggest concern at that moment was getting the hell out of my little town I was ‘trapped’ in, I wasn’t the only spoiled brat who thought that way. Out of the 1,124 of my graduating class 812 of us joined the military, a handful joined the peace or job corps and the those who stayed there are still there, but the town is not so little anymore.
Years later, and I mean years I heeded every … single … word
that my English imparted to me in the 10th grade. When I sent my 1st
manuscript for consideration I sent two copies. One to the publisher and one to
myself. When that large manila envelope came back to me, as instructed by Miss
Carter, I didn’t open it but put it away in a safe place.
The military calls this ‘establishing a chain of custody.’
My English teacher was very blunt, she said “people steal and its going to be really
hard to prove that somebody stole something this good from a hardheaded, smart
mouthed, know-it-all little brat … unless
you have proof.” She explained that the post office puts a stamp on every
single piece of mail that they mail and that stamp, in a court of law, would be
indisputable in a court of law. She also warned that the most important thing
was NOT to open the envelope. She said that the judge should open it. She went
on to explain “that the post office stamp would let the judge know that you wrote it first and
the sealed envelope would show the judge that the contents inside had not been tampered
with.”
Sage advice. I still have all nine packets and they are still
unopened. When publishers changed the submissions guideline from snail mail to
email, I essentially did the same thing. I created a private email account and
every story I have sent for consideration I’ve also sent it bcc to my private
account and those emails are still sitting there unopened and unread.
I think about Miss Carter all the time because she looked
past my little bad ass and saw in me what I didn’t see in myself. When I sent
her a copy of The Darkness she wrote me back to tell me she wasn’t the least
bit surprised.
But the reason for this blog post is because lately, I always
get on Facebook statuses linking articles about author’s who have had their
work stolen, author’s like Sophia Steward and Sheila Moss, but most times it's
about the author’s who are committing the crime. Author’s like Jordin Williams,
Steve Jeffery, and Jon Flatland. I can’t imagine what it would be like if
someone I trusted with my story took it from me. So I guess I just wanted to say
be careful, and research the editor’s and publisher that you’re considering working
with and no matter what always try to establish some type of paper trail.
Here are some more helpful tips
