Dying sucks and originality’s dead
This is Day 2: The Killer Flu Bug. *grumble*
I finished the last two Jennifer Rardin books and Ann Aguirre’s Grimspace this week. If my head quits pounding, I should be able to post reviews of them. All three books where highly enjoyable, so I want to do them justice with a clear head.
One thing I did want to talk about, though, is originality. I’ve been working on WIP #2 and have been patting my back over certain story elements I thought were really original. *grin* Yeah right, I know. There’s always going to be similarities to other books. When you’re part of the same culture, you have similar interactions thus similar ideas, but I get so paranoid of someone saying, “I read this in blah blah blah already” that I actually look for similarities between my work and the work of others.
*side note* This makes my tangent regarding kitsune seem a little hypocritical…
Until this week, my work had fared rather well in the unique spectrum. Then it hit me–one of the characters in my new favorite series (ie by Jennifer Rardin) uses my main character’s name. A lot. (And no, it isn’t Jaz or Jasmine) Not a big deal…but then Jaz gets a Spirit Guide. Okay, still not that rare, and mine’s not really a Spirit Guide–they just communicate in a similar fashion. But then Ann Aguirre had to come along and make me uber paranoid!
Sargasso is the name of a ship in her novel, Grimspace. It is also said to be the sea of lost things. In all the many books I’ve read, I’ve never seen it mentioned before. At least, not until I decided to use it in my WIP.
*shakes head* I think the flu is making me delusional, but it’s a real fear I have. Especially after all the griping I do when it appears (key word now is APPEARS) that an author I read is doing it. It’s like, you do all this research and pound on your chest to declare yourself Master of the Brilliant Idea and then you pick up a book and realize it’s been done far before the idea ever ran into your head to lay its eggs.
What’s even worse than this blog bemoaning the death of originality is that it’s already been done before!.
