The Writing Week part 34

Not much writing this week. At all.

I started working on a short for that Hotel Guignol thing earlier this week, but as I was relaying my idea for it to Onyx )damn that Onyx) he told me that it sounded exactly like that movie 1402, or whatever that Sam L. Jackson thing was. I've never seen 1402 beyond the trailers, and I didn't know much about it - I think I knew it took place in a hotel. Other than that, I knew bubkes about it. Apparently, I also knew everything about it, as, little did I know, I was pretty much writing the condensed version of it.

It's funny how that can happen - all of a sudden, your great, original idea is not so original, and perhaps not so great. The basic premise behind my post-Apocalyptic spec, much to my horror, my just used as a spoof trailer in a comedy. The fact that it was a spoof was discouraging on two levels: 1) people were making fun of it, undercutting the seriousness with which I treated it, and 2) it was my "original" idea, my hook, my big break. Now, not so much. To top that string of unfortunate discoveries off, Onxy (damn you again, Onyx) had to remind me of a script a mentor of his is lending him to read, which essentially rips two of my ideas from me. Two scripts now "been done" by this, as-of-yet -unmade movie.

Ok, ok, that's a bit dramatic. Ideas get done, they get repeated. Afterall, aren't we taught that there are only like 10 real stories anyway? The point, though, is that what I thought to be my hooks suddenly aren't that unique. I know it's to be expected, but, come on, this many of them? All at one time? I can still take solace in the knowledge that I came up with these ideas on my own, uninspired by any of the - what skeptics might call - "source material." It still sucks, though, and I can't help but wonder if I've just gone back to Go without being able to collect my $200.