I’m not a master poker player by any means, but while reading through the first draft of my latest novel, I couldn’t help but be reminded of Friday night card games from my high school days.
While weighing the pros and cons of offering sample chapters of my as-of-yet-unpublished works of fiction on this website, it occurred to me that there could be little harm in posting a short story that could never be published anywhere other than a blog.
Joseph Epstein said, “Every writer is a thief, though some of us are more clever than others at disguising our robberies.” He was referring to minor counts of plagiarism—an apt description, a novel turn of phrase, a treatment of syntax that (with a minor tweak) we could pass off as our own brilliant invention. However, the thievery doesn’t end there.