If you steal from one author, it’s plagiarism; if you steal from many, it's research.

Wilson Mizner

At the risk of bringing copyright infringement charges down upon my head, I’d like to quote from my favorite comic strip -- Peanuts. (My office walls are plastered with comic strip clippings of Snoopy sitting on his dog house, banging away at his typewriter.)

Lucy says to Snoopy: "They all do it, why shouldn’t you? Just take a famous fairy tale and change it a little." So Snoopy types: "Snow White and the Seven Beagles."

(Without the cartoon frames it loses quite a bit in the translation, but you get the idea.)

I don’t know a single writer who, at one time or another, hasn’t taken an idea or a title and changed it just enough to make it into something of his own.

I do it all the time. People tell me I’m creative, but I know the truth -- I’m simply good at stealing ideas, giving them my own little twist, then turning them into something that reflects my cockeyed view of the world.

Nothing creative about it. ‘Course after tutelage under one of the best (in my opinion) professors-of-writing, Dr. Richard L. Snyder, and working with relentless Editor Mike, maybe I have come a little farther than I think.

To both men, I am deeply indebted. The rigorous cutting and tightening each has demanded of my writing often caused me great pain, but it also made for a much better read.

We are, after all, writing to be read, are we not?

That’s what I used to think. But I know the truth about that now, too. I must write in order to see what’s going on inside my head. Only by pouring out the jumbled-up thoughts into written form and organizing them on the page, can I sort them out in my head. (Sometimes it’s a real surprise to see what’s going on in there!)

Through that process, the writing purges my soul. And once in a while, hidden in all the garbage that comes spewing forth, I discover a gem or two. Not often, mind you, but just often enough to keep me struggling at this heart-wrenching craft.

Dr. Snyder once told me, "Writing will break your heart; it breaks all our hearts eventually." But regardless of the pain, I must continue write.

So, like Snoopy, I keep hammering away at the keyboard. Whenever I get too discouraged at my seeming lack of progress, I read my walls and take courage from Snoopy’s never-say-die attitude:

"Dear Contributor," Snoopy reads in another rejection letter. "We are returning your worthless story. It is the dumbest story we have ever read. Please don’t send us any more. Please, Please, Please!"

Snoopy looks up with his all-knowing smile: "I just love to hear an editor beg."

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