Last week, I was pointed to a blog entry that someone asked if I'd written because it sounded like me. I looked and it looked like something I'd written a few weeks before. I looked again and it looked a LOT like that something. I looked back at my blog and found that the owner of the entry I'd been pointed to had written a comment on my own blog entry. I was stunned. Was it an error? I had read her blog and recently given her some link love for another blog that was in the same niche as my non-writing blog. I also saw the same alias on a forum I frequent and this didn't seem like something I'd get from someone who appeared to have a good freelance writing career and a lot of wise and informative things to say.

Sharon Hurley Hall asked me to post a guest post on her blog while she was away and I actually declined at first because I had such a busy week last week and didn't feel particularly inspired to write something. I didn't want to put fluff out there for Sharon's blog so I figured I'd take a rain check.

Now, I had this odd scenario on my hands and didn't want to jump the gun. Instead of writing to the person on the blog and calling them out, I decided to be more subtle. I knew they frequented my blog and had also seen that they blogrolled Sharon's blog on their own blog so I wrote my guest blog post about the event and gave the person the benefit of the doubt.

They did find the post and contacted me and I'm pleased with my approach because I was right to give the benefit of the doubt because it was unintentional. I know we're all capable of mistakes. Just yesterday I found myself verbally regurgitating something I'd read to someone else. It wasn't my idea but it hit home with me and it felt natural to pass along that advice. It wasn't until words were out of my mouth that I thought about it and decided to credit the originator of the idea in the conversation. If more time had passed or I got caught up in something, I might have forgotten where I got the info or just neglected to mention it. I guess my point is that I can see how the error might have happened. We connect with a thought or an idea sometimes and as I said on Sharon's blog, my blog might have etched its way into this person's subconscious and they may have mistaken memory for inspiration. That seems to be what happened because they comment originally that they did connect with my post.

The person contacted me as a result of my guest post, took down the blog post in question and actually now I see they've the whole blog down temporarily. They can see the similarities and it was unintentional. I'm feeling bad about that because I thought her blog was good and I plan to continue to stop by all her blogs because she is a good writer and has plenty of sage advice. I think I might have reacted the same way if the shoe were on the other foot and reassessed myself as well with such a strong allegation. I can only imagine how I'd have felt if I'd made the same error.

Anyway, my point here is that I'm glad I did it 'off' my own blog because:
a) it was a more indirect way to confront it
b) it didn't create drama on my blog
c) I was able to contribute something interesting to Sharon's blog
and
d) I got it off my chest. If I hadn't have confronted it, I'd have been steaming with suspicion every time I saw this person visit my blog or saw a post from them on a forum we both frequent. I feel better and I hope she isn't beating herself up over it.

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Dana Prince's The Writer's Blog
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Dana Prince Writing