Diary of a Mad Editor

Yesterday, when I reported on the plagiarism accusations against Twilight author, Stephanie Meyer, I was unaware that she’d actually written an unpublished sequel to Twilight prior to the second book in the series and that Breaking Dawn apparently retains many of the plot elements of Forever Dawn, the unpublished sequel. And, even though this early novel remains unpublished, Meyer did have the good sense to register the copyright:

Forever dawn.

Type of Work: Text
Registration Number / Date: TXu001163060 / 2004-01-05
Application Title: Renesmee.
Title: Forever dawn.
Description: 241 p.
Copyright Claimant: Stephenie Morgan Meyer (Morgan Meyer)
Date of Creation: 2003
Rights and Permissions: Rights & permissions info. on original appl. in C.O.

Names: Meyer, Stephenie Morgan
Meyer, Morgan

You’ll notice the date of creation coincides with the alleged date of creation for Jordan Scott’s book. This information can only strengthen Meyer’s defense against Scott’s bogus case — especially if Meyer can point to specific incidents in the earlier book which mirror the passages in Breaking Dawn that Scott claims are cribbed from her book.

And speaking of Scott’s book, I was intrigued that I could find no credible evidence that anyone had read The Nocturne prior to the plagiarism stink. The book was allegedly published in paperback by a U.K. publishing firm in 2006. The publisher, Griffon Books is supposedly an imprint of the Blackthorn Media Group. I don’t know of a publisher that doesn’t operate its own website so my puzzlement only deepened when I couldn’t find a website for either the imprint or the parent company. Nor could I find another book title which had been produced by this company. I dug a little deeper and discover that Blackthorn Media Group is a company formed in 2005-2006 by Jordan Scott’s mother and Jordan Scott to produce independent films.

So, if the book was ever published in paperback, it was self-published and it remains to be discovered whether this book was ever distributed to book stores and libraries or purchased by a single reader. The SEC filings for this company show no assets of any kind and appears to be a company in name only. As of 2007, this company was planning to develop and produce four properties written by Jordan Scott as films including The Nocturne and The Roslin Murders — the latter screenplay was awarded an honorable mention in a very minor screenplay contest at a very obscure film festival in Florida. To date, there is no evidence that this company has produced anything or has secured any funding to do so in the future.

Jordan Scott makes a number of claims in her bio, which I have doubts about and am trying to verify. One that really smells of bullshit is that she used to be a model with a major modelling agency. Like I said, she’s kind of cute . . . but she ain’t that cute. She also claims to have a number of film and television credits and that she’s a card-carrying member of SAG. It all sounds a little fishy to me. At her young age, if she were truly as accomplished as she claims, she’d have been in the news before now, I’m sure. Anyway, I’m going to be keeping on top of this because I love a good mystery.