Caught Red-Handed

I had shamelessly pilfered from my past.

That level of irony? Chef’s kiss

The rejection from the community was polite, even cordial, but I already felt like a marked person, branded by that plagiarism-free = X.

Like a disgraced writer penning my own public apology.

Does that mean if I were to run all my previous writings through a plagiarism checker, they would be flagged as plagiarism?

Someone hearing me out for the first time might initially think:
Wow, someone out there thinks your work is worth plagiarizing! You must be that good, right?

Then I had to kick myself:
What on earth is this moron in me doing? If I wanted to borrow from someone, there are literally so many great writers out there. Why would I choose… ME?

Honestly, I still don’t know whether to cry or laugh.

And to think this happened to me, after all the usual things most of us do, like syndicating our work for more exposure everywhere.

Everything has its first time, I suppose.

So, for anyone reading this, here’s the full disclosure: that was me, from the current day, plagiarizing myself from another time — the past me.

It hurts a little and it’s comical all at once; I don’t even know how to explain it to myself.