Why do you keep writing for them?

I have a process that I hope helps. My creative writing is first shared on WritersCafe because they clearly copyright stamp every new post. Then I post it on Wordpress. Some of my creative writing, if it falls into the themes of writer-activism, will be shared here too. I've begun sharing some of my fiction on Wattpad, after it's been through WritersCafe for that copyright stamp. And, everywhere my creative writing is shared, the copyright is included.

So far, I haven't found my stuff lifted wholesale. But, I did have problems in the past with my artwork being stolen. As a teenager, I wanted to be a fashion designer. A teacher arranged for me to show my work to a design lead for Furchgot's in Florida. That designer, after a couple of months with my drawings, returned them to me and essentially told me I was wasting my time. Then, the next Fashion Week, the designer had their runway show – more than half the stuff that came down that runway was mine. I was watching with my grandparents and grabbed my sketch diaries, showing them the drawings – some of which were two or three years old. The woman didn't even alter the colors or fine details. She just flat out copied them and claimed them as her own.

In my college writing class, I lost one of my journals in the campus dining hall. My work was then presented in my own damned class by two different classmates as their own. I never read my stuff in class – I didn't think it was any good and was also rather personal. But, I was able to prove that the stories were mine because they continuations of stories based on my own life, which the teacher recognized.

It's a terrible and invasive feeling. It's like someone ripping away a piece of you.