I THINKI once started a rather offbeat TG Alien Sci Fi story, and lost it when my laptop got stuck in the trunk when we were moving to Ohio from Oregon. The temperature was 104 degrees at times and the poor thing just fried. Everything I was working on was gone. Recovery efforts were futile. That was in 2009.
I suddenly remembered said tale a couple weeks ago, and am rewriting it now.
I'm worried that this memory of my having written this story is false, and that I am remembering something that was written by someone else? I think it will be a short story of 20K words or less.
When I publish it, if anyone thinks that it is someone else's story, please let me know and I will take it down immediately. I'm 72 and things are not as clear as they once were.
Comments
So what if you end up telling a similar story
I can understand your concern, but do you really think that you would be telling the story you read verbatim? Every one us tells a story differently and you would be no different. For my part, I would definitely want to see your story regardless of whether you decide to take it down. I really believe that reading your story could teach me something about writing.
I agree.
I would love to see you publish it. And it's not likely to be close enough to another published story to matter.
There are only seven stories in the world.
All the myriads you see are just re-tellings. Go ahead, make yours, don't fear. :)
Safe to say
I think it probably is safe to say that if you can't remember well enough to remember if YOU were writing it or someone else was, that its probably different enough after all this time that even if it WAS originally yours, it won't be the same story. Ten years provides a fairly significant addition of life experience and perspective change... and that's going to have an impact on any character or plotline you work on. But you know that... its good that you're concerned, but I don't think anyone else is. :P