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working away in front of my log fire on my entry for the Christmas Comp when disaster struck.
It was my third attempt at a story when a Christmas Film came on the TV. Five minutes in, and I knew that the 3,000 odd words that I'd written were junk. The plot of the film and my story were almost identical. For a moment, I felt like throwing my MacBook at the TV but I didn't. I'd certainly not seen the film before and was made in 2019.
My muse saw the similarity and promptly exited stage left into the distance at a great rate of knots and that's it.
Unless she returns soon, it looks like I won't be submitting a piece for the comp this year.
There is always next year.
Samantha
Comments
Nothing New Under the Sun
Samanth, sweetheart, do you honestly think anything we write hasn't already been told before? And under what mushroom have you been hiding all your life? Write your story and tell it your way which is what makes you unique among the billion other people scattered across this spaceship we call earth. A kazillion years from now someone will be laying down in a liquid foam filled cocoon watching your stories brought to life as the AI converts printed page to VR. She will be living your stories thinking what a great writer you were and wishing she had met you.
Finish your story love.
Hugs Samantha
Barb
Life is meant to be lived not worn until it's worn out.
PS: Velour gathers lint like a magnet even if there isn't any the room. I don't think I'll borrow your black dress again. Loan me your copper colored shirt waist dress. The one that reflects light like the setting sun on the lake. Yes, that one.
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
Log Fire?
It's eighty degrees here in the dead of winter and the wind is screaming above 30mph. It isn't climate change but Mother Nature. Same time different years I've been covered in ice and had to stand in front of the fire to get my clothes thawed enough to get out of them. I've experience climate change in more years than I'll admit. Years so dry the ground opens up with cracks inches wide. Years so wet daddy had to change what he intended to plant because it was too wet to get equipment in the field.
Climate Change is Mother Nature and the earth wobbling on it's axes. You people do understand the earth doesn't spin like a tire but it wobbles like a top. Climate Change indeedie!
Hugs Samantha, trade you twenty degrees of heat for twenty degrees of cool.
Barb
Life is a gift, don't waste it.
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
Semis Rolled over Today High Winds
Some are coming up on youtube, but the majority aren't posted
This is a clip of what it's like trying to fight high winds while driving a semi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4Q_u5H0Ub8
Denver canceled over a hundred flights, some areas posted winds up to a hundred five MPH
Kinda brisk out there in the High Plains.
Hugs People
Barb
Life is a gift, treasure it.
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
I know most stories have already been written
but I was making some French Onion Soup the other day when I had an idea for a story as the onions caramelised.
Because I was cooking, I set the story in a Restaurant and... Well, a prince charming arrived on the scene thanks to a broken down car and you can guess the rest.
Oh well.
The copper coloured dress is sadly no more. I wore it to a soiree at the weekend and the host's pet goat (named Matilda) took a shine to it.
Samantha
Yer Lying like a Dog
Jerri sent pics. The soiree of which you speak was last weekend but it was the Welsh Princess Catrin twenty ninth birthday gathering. Cocker Spaniels do not count as goats. You need help! You are starting to mix your stories with reality and losing it lady. Didn't I return the plum colored cocktail dress last month? The cleaners couldn't get the wine stains out but he said it added distinction to the dress. I can't believe you're still miffed at me. Yours and Bru's excuses for losing dresses when I ask to borrow is getting thin.
Hugs Sweety, Sunday weather drops to twelve degrees. That's going to put ice on the pumpkin. At least it isn't twenty below zero and I don't have to chop holes in the ice in the stock tank for the livestock now. Welcome to Oklahoma, don't like the weather, wait twenty minutes, it will change.
Barb
Life is a gift, don't waste it.
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
Carol's Christmas Movie for Carol
That happened to me years ago with my non-tg alien invasion western story.
I just had the outline looking pretty spiffy and a few pages written when I
happened upon an article containing brief stories written by schoolkids
from Reno who had taken a field trip to Virginia City. Alien invasions
were big that year (the film Independence Day had just come out)
and almost ALL the kid's stories had plots identical to mine.
They even had the miners throwing dynamite at the aliens.
I think that was even more humiliating than your
seeing your story as a Hallmark Holiday Film.
Netflix makes sure they have several new Christmas movies every year,
I can't say they're all the same, but the few that I've watched sure seem to be.
And this year they've replaced their writers with Christmas movie writing software:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVB25kDMN_Y
I would love to see what kind of transgender fiction a computer would produce
If we fed in every story on this site. I bet it would be as randomly hilarious
as the Xmas flick I linked here. I don't think we authors here
have to worry about being replaced by AI just yet...
~hugs, Veronica
We now return to our regular programming:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTl00248Z48
.
One of the hazards of a short story writer!
It's very hard if not impossible to write fiction without re-cycling a plot line, trope, character personality or (add to the list). Just reconcile yourself to writing within that reality and ignore any comparisons that may result. You're a wonderful writer with your own unique perspective. Please complete the story, even if it takes you past some deadline. I think your and my muse must belong to the same guild, where contrariness and insecurity are requirements for admission! She's probably pouting outside in the damp behind the logpile. Take her a cup of hot cocoa and a couple of
cookies (sorry!)biscuits and say a few kind words to salve her bruised ego, perhaps she can be coaxed back inside. Good luck!