Stole my work. I wanted to talk about how everyone feels when you see something which is so similar to your own work that it makes you feel that way. I've been writing a series for quite a few years now. It didn't really start out that way. This started as an idea for a novel, and I kept working on it, and working on it, and working on it, but it just never really came to fruition. I knew something didn't quite work. I didn't have the right characters, I felt.
But I have since created the right characters, but have found that now the whole of the work is changed. And I know that it's right. That it is the right direction. But the problem is that each book in the series will essentially function as a stand alone story, novelette, novella, novel itself while being connected to the greater fictional world I'm creating. With the idea that I'll likely bring it all together in a novel trilogy to finish the series.
Okay, doing it this way means that the world I'm creating necessarily has elements of almost everything in existence, it seems, which because of the way my mind works is perfectly fine. I'll get it done eventually. For years I did not see how to tie all the threads together but that's no longer my problem. My problem now is that because of the nature of the way I've chosen to treat this story and how long I've been working on it, there are now so many stories out there so similar to my own work that it has planted the seed of doubt in me. That I wonder should I even be doing it. I see new movies, and books coming out that are so similar as to have almost been plucked from my own head, that it makes me feel like, 'what's the point,' and should I even continue working on this project that has taken me so many years.
By the way, the work itself would be compared to something like a Lord of the Rings, or The Dark Tower Series (not that I'm comparing my writing abilities to either, just that if I manage to bring it off properly it'll be massive and encompassing). In truth one might take the viewpoint of the Dark Tower related works to get closer to describing what I'm trying to do. Where his works were associated on accident because it bled that way from his mind, I have chosen to do this on purpose. And to make it all a part of the same series.
Maybe the question got a bit lost: How do you deal with that feeling? What do you tell yourself to get beyond the doubting moments? Though I do think this project (at least wholly speaking) will be quite a bit different than most. The individual stories themselves will always be subject to this line of questioning, and doubt.
But I have since created the right characters, but have found that now the whole of the work is changed. And I know that it's right. That it is the right direction. But the problem is that each book in the series will essentially function as a stand alone story, novelette, novella, novel itself while being connected to the greater fictional world I'm creating. With the idea that I'll likely bring it all together in a novel trilogy to finish the series.
Okay, doing it this way means that the world I'm creating necessarily has elements of almost everything in existence, it seems, which because of the way my mind works is perfectly fine. I'll get it done eventually. For years I did not see how to tie all the threads together but that's no longer my problem. My problem now is that because of the nature of the way I've chosen to treat this story and how long I've been working on it, there are now so many stories out there so similar to my own work that it has planted the seed of doubt in me. That I wonder should I even be doing it. I see new movies, and books coming out that are so similar as to have almost been plucked from my own head, that it makes me feel like, 'what's the point,' and should I even continue working on this project that has taken me so many years.
By the way, the work itself would be compared to something like a Lord of the Rings, or The Dark Tower Series (not that I'm comparing my writing abilities to either, just that if I manage to bring it off properly it'll be massive and encompassing). In truth one might take the viewpoint of the Dark Tower related works to get closer to describing what I'm trying to do. Where his works were associated on accident because it bled that way from his mind, I have chosen to do this on purpose. And to make it all a part of the same series.
Maybe the question got a bit lost: How do you deal with that feeling? What do you tell yourself to get beyond the doubting moments? Though I do think this project (at least wholly speaking) will be quite a bit different than most. The individual stories themselves will always be subject to this line of questioning, and doubt.
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