Did I think of that?

Gynn · Jul 5, 2008

Have you ever written a line and wondered if it's actually yours? Sometimes I'll be writing and a line I've written seems vaguely familiar, and I can't guess whether it's because I thought of it myself or because I've read it before in someone else's work.

I need a better memory =(

Bayley · Jul 5, 2008

I've done that. Then an week later I usually remember it was from a movie. I've done that with names too. I watched Casino Royale, then a couple of days later needed a name for a character. I picked 'James Band', then someone mentioned how close it was to 'James Bond'. I didn't even notice.

Also, I've got some lines, that I'm like 'Did I write that? That's too good for me to write'. I won't believe I've wrote something good until after I've typed the line in on every search engine and checked that it doesn't exist.

scheherazade · Jul 5, 2008

oh my god, yes. I found a page-long start to a story in an old box and I could not for the life of me remember whether i wrote it. It sounded like it would fit a story I was thinking about writing at one point, but the style looked a little different than other stuff I'd written at the time (I was actually a little jealous of some of the phrasing) and I seemed to use words that even today I'd wonder whether I'd know enough to use.... anyway, I later found a page of notes outlining that same story, including a rough, handwritten draft of the same excerpt, so it's definitely mine.

But yeah... it's hard to remember whether things are your own or were taken from somewhere else.

But I think subconsciously we're always taking ideas from other people and then regurgitating them as our own. Fortunately, our memory for ideas is stronger than our memory for phrases, so usually if it's from somewhere else we've usually reworded it and made it our own. So unless you're talking about a lone phrase in a notebook (which could be an overheard quote or something from your mind) it might be something you've written that maybe reflects something someone else said in a slightly different way. Or, it's a cliche, and then you've heard it so often you can't help but internalize the line. Or else it's a line that you've encountered over and over again, from a favorite book or movie.

estateconnection · Jul 5, 2008

I actually asked this question some time last year--or the year before even. I found a typed poem that was very good in a drawer. It was very familiar to me, but I couldn't for the life of me remember writing it. Like Bayley, I searched all the lines in every search engine I could think of and found nothing. But I still doubted it was mine so in the drawer it remains. I read it quite frequently and am amazed by it, but I'm not confident enough that it is mine to do anything with it.

maestrowork · Jul 5, 2008

This is on my cell phone. I'm sure I wrote it, since only I had access to my phone, but I don't remember writing it:

Here in the wilderness I call upon the power of god to smite those who dare to disobey.

I had no idea what I was smoking then.

bethany · Jul 5, 2008

In the last round of copyedits on Handcuffs I found a paragraph I was sure I hadn't written. I would've bet money that I didn't write that paragraph, and I was all confused because to that point I'd been asked to okay even the tiniest changes to the manuscript.

So, I opened the last copy of the manuscript that I had sent to my editor and did a search. Sure enough. I wrote that paragraph.

Kalyke · Jul 5, 2008

The problem with education is that your mind is filled with many things other people have written or done, and very few things that you have written or done yourself. If you lived in a vacuum , you would know very little, but most of it would be things you discovered yourself. It would probably sound a lot like things other people discovered, because I think we are very similar inside, none of us are too different than any other person, so I think each person knows similar things, with age and experience being factors for knowing more or less. I googled a few lines I "thought" I might have read in the past-- a feeling-- and couldn't find them, but I do not think that the text to every book is on line either. At what point does something you read become yours?

nevada · Jul 5, 2008

Here in the wilderness I call upon the power of god to smite those who dare to disobey.

Are you going to finish that? I'd like to read it. OH OH you could make it one of those cellphone novel thingies they write in Japan.

I don't often have times where I think someone else might have written it but I do completely forget that I have written something. Yesterday I was playing with some files in the folder that holds the first novel I've ever written and found a file called Second Draft. Now I know that I did corrections but I also know that I never did a second draft. So I opened it and there were 21 pages of a new beginning that apparently at some time I wrote. I don't know when, I have no recollection of it at all. I will say that it's a lot better than the original opening.

But I have had those echoes occasionally. Not that I think it's "too good" for me to have written it (geez that sounds arrogant. oh well) but that it just sounds like i've heard it. That I have a physical memory attached to the words, like reading them, or watching a movie and hearing them. I rewrite the sentence and move on.

darrtwish · Jul 5, 2008

When I write a really good line, I'll go "Didn't I see something like in so-and-so's book such-and-such." Occasionally I do catch myself, and I will have to re-write a certain line because it seems too similar to a line in a book I've read a dozen times.

Hollan · Jul 5, 2008

That happened to me several times. Once in HS we were reading Beowulf and had to write a paragraph from Beowulf's POV and Grendel's POV. I found them years later and was shocked at how cool the one in Grendel's pov was. I couldn't believe I even know half of the words. The same thing has happened with snippets here and there. It's strange what our minds store in long term memory and what they find irrelevant and toss aside.

scheherazade · Jul 5, 2008

There were a couple of stories recently about a similar phenomenon with stand-up comics: http://www.utne.com/2007-07-01/StealingComicGold.aspx, http://www.radaronline.com/from-the-magazine/2007/02/take_the_funny_and_run_1.php . I think we all internalize the art of others to some extent, and then we repackage it into our own work. Usually even the best works are synergisms of stuff that has been previously created.

But I think some people (for example, Robin Williams in the Radar story, second link above) have a greater ability to internalize the world around them and then regurgitate it as their own. On the one hand that makes those same people brilliant at reproducing accents and creating impressions, but on the other hand it can sometimes lead to more direct artistic plagiarism. It's good to know if you're a strong internalizer so you can keep an eye out for those kinds of things, but really, you can't remember everything you've taken from somewhere else. And if you did try to keep all influence out of your work, you'd probably never work.

shelboselby · Jul 6, 2008

For me, it happens with names. I'm all about the way a name sounds when you say it. So I always say the names a lot out loud. The other day I became fascinated with a name and knew I was going to use it, but when I said it out loud I realized it sounded VERY familiar.

Turns out, after much searching, I realized it was the name of the traffic guy on the local radio station.

But yes...happens to me all the time.

dwellerofthedeep · Jul 6, 2008

I frequently write so quickly that I do not recognize any of what I have written as my own at a glance.

tehuti88 · Jul 6, 2008

Gynn said:
Have you ever written a line and wondered if it's actually yours? Sometimes I'll be writing and a line I've written seems vaguely familiar, and I can't guess whether it's because I thought of it myself or because I've read it before in someone else's work.

I need a better memory =(

I don't tend to wonder if somebody else "wrote" (came up with) a line I myself wrote, though I wouldn't say it's impossible; maybe it happens and I'm of course just not aware of it!

I do, however, often forget having written something until I read it again. This happens a lot, for better or for worse. It's usually with funny lines, it seems. I'll be proofreading or browsing something I wrote a few months ago and then will just burst out laughing at the monitor. I by no means think I'm anything near witty. But there are so many goofy lines I just can't remember writing, it's weird. Maybe it's just me though, whenever I read them to my parents they just give me odd looks like, "Why is that funny?"

I usually can't even remember where or how I came up with such silly lines, so I guess most of them aren't planned in advance.

A recurring dream of mine is one where I find some old childhood art or writing and it's in my own hand but I have no recollection of writing or even thinking about it, and there's this eerie "multiple personality/dissociative identity"-type feeling involved. *cue weird music*

I, too, need a much better memory.

tehuti88 · Jul 6, 2008

shelboselby said:
For me, it happens with names. I'm all about the way a name sounds when you say it. So I always say the names a lot out loud. The other day I became fascinated with a name and knew I was going to use it, but when I said it out loud I realized it sounded VERY familiar.

Turns out, after much searching, I realized it was the name of the traffic guy on the local radio station.

ZOMG! That happened to me once in high school; I wrote a play as a class assignment. It was set in a mental hospital and a depressed character was named "Billy Lowman" or something. I remember that when the play was read, the literature teacher kind of smirked in a knowing way as if we were both in on some joke, but I didn't get it. A while later I remembered we had read part of "Death Of A Salesman" with the character Willy Loman. Teacher must have thought I was paying tribute.

Erk!!

Seif · Jul 6, 2008

Always. But I don't know whether that's a good thing or a bad thing.

lawtowriting · Jul 6, 2008

Yes, and this is why I'm totally paranoid that when I do get a novel published it will turn out that I subconsciously ripped off jokes/lines from various other authors. Whenever I write a really great line I end up googling it to make sure I actually made it up.

MumblingSage · Jul 6, 2008

Normally I'm able to pinpoint from where I've stolen my lines :tongue

When reading some of my sister's work I find a line I know is from her favorite author. Then I call her out on it. Sometimes she changes it, sometimes she leaves it. I feel superior until I find the next rip-off line of my own.

Lccorp2 · Jul 6, 2008

Everything's got to look like something else."--Rincewind, The science of Discworld.

Straka · Jul 7, 2008

occasionally I invent real words too... nothing new under the sun.

Nateskate · Jul 7, 2008

I've said that both as a positive and a negative. "Did I write that?" Lol, it feels good when the book flows. It's horrible when it's not working.

But I've felt the "Deja Vu" feeling moreso when I wrote songs and found a melody I loved. Having loved music from an early age, my mind would do an inventory, "Did I hear this before???"

kuwisdelu · Jul 7, 2008

Bayley said:
Also, I've got some lines, that I'm like 'Did I write that? That's too good for me to write'. I won't believe I've wrote something good until after I've typed the line in on every search engine and checked that it doesn't exist.

This happens to me much more often than thinking I've stolen a line from somewhere else. Especially with my older stories that I don't remember writing anymore. I'll look at a phrase and think "did I really write that?"

More often than not, actually, I'll steal lines from myself rather than anyone else. I'll use a phrase or a metaphor only to realize I've used it before in a previous story. What does it mean when you are your worst plagiarist?

kuwisdelu · Jul 7, 2008

Straka said:
occasionally I invent real words too... nothing new under the sun.

I do this, too. Or use a word without knowing what it means.

I'll have a sentence, and pick out a word just because it "sounds" right.

I'll ask myself "is this the right word? is this even a word?"

Then I'll look it up and be surprised to find not only is it a word, but it's the perfect one.

Straka · Jul 7, 2008

When I was young I thought invented the name Roland. Nevermind the medieval hero with a fancy sword...

channeller · Jul 8, 2008

The first book I wrote (ages ago) had a made-up company name for a title. I was less than impressed when I googled it later as an afterthought and found out there was already a real company with the same name. And here I thought I'd been so clever...

(I renamed it to something that wasn't as good at all and now it's been happilly collecting dust in a drawer for about ten years!

)

Did I think of that?

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