Have you ever wondered what you would do if you saw your (mostly) exact idea out in the wild, being used by someone other than yourself?
Liz Gilbert talks about this phenomena in her book Big Magic. She does a great job of telling the story about an idea she had for a novel about the Amazon, which she spent oodles of time on, and then put it away for a small time- only to discover when she went to return to it, the idea was gone. In what she describes as wizardry - a new friend she’d made, and had begun exchanging letters with, divulged to her that she was working on a new novel about the Amazon! There were very slight differences between the two novels, but essentially the idea was (mostly) exactly the same. Thus pretty much proving the theory that ideas move around to different people just waiting to land on the right one(s).
Liz being the amazing person that she is, did not freak out and accuse her friend of stealing an idea or any such thing. She turned the experience into magic.
I am sorry to say that upon seeing an idea I’ve been writing about (not out loud in a public space) was shared yesterday by another writer, and I did not think it was magical.
My whole body had a strange visceral response of feeling like I’d been sucker punched by the universe. To be fair, I had only been awake for about 20 minutes and my brain was not firing yet on all cylinders so the reaction was intense. And of course I had to share about it on FB because I needed validation that I was not crazy for feeling this way.
Mind you, all I had seen was a title/headline and a sub-headline in my email inbox. I couldn’t bring myself to read it just yet. Those two things were enough to send my body and brain into a tailspin of “how in the fuck could someone I don’t even know have created something using words I had typed into the Notes app on my phone?!” Damn near verbatim. So yeah, ya know, I freaked out a little bit.
And it literally felt like my idea had just decided to go cheat on me with someone else!
It should be noted - I am sometimes prone to overreacting.
I have to say that writerly support poured in and I was reassured numerous times over that this happens all the time because duh - ideas don’t live in a vacuum. And even if this person was writing about the very topic that I was writing my entire memoir about, they had only made a post about it. And anyway, their story is not my story with my voice, so ultimately could not be the same even if the words were.
Once I was more awake and coherent and had drank/drunk my coffee, I opened up the person’s post and read it, realizing their story was not exactly like mine, just the title and sub-headline were. And a friend pointed out that this experience sounded a lot like the one Liz had written about. A Big Magic moment - all my own, with a side of ugh, but why though? I’m still super curious how this all happened and why it happens at all.
I know that it’s crazy common and the only thing I can reason out of it is that there are some ideas that make their way into the moment and us creatives seem to grab onto them. Also, if I really break it down on a psychological level I could deconstruct it to it’s most basic form of my brain is just primed to see more of what I’m focused on now. So, everything having to do with the central theme of my memoir is going to start presenting itself and my awareness is going to zero in on it because it’s ALL I can think about.
It still felt like my idea was stepping out on me though. I mean really, couldn’t it have just waited for me to finish writing about it first?! Rude.
I am no longer in the freak out stage.
I am in the wow, I must really be tapping into something that is of interest to people stage. And I am so excited by that!
The whole experience, while strange, unusual (to me), and a wee bit perplexing, has ultimately lead me to feeling even more creative. I can’t wait for you to read what will eventually be my book! And here’s hoping that we all keep creating together and ideas find us in the most unexpected ways.
Tell me dear reader and writer friends - has this ever happened to you? Did you freak out? Did you laugh at the cosmic joke being played on you too? Did the idea abandon you altogether for a newer, younger, more readily recipient of said idea? Am I just too sensitive?
So.many.questions.
The creative life is certainly full of mystery sometimes! Please share with me your thoughts, feelings, experiences, validation.
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Take great care friends. Big magical love to you all!
I work in Hollywood and you'd be surprised how often this happens. It has happened to me once, which was a bummer for sure, but I too got over it. Ultimately I believe there are an infinite number of good ideas out there. But there's a new project I'm working that I 100% know someone else will do if I don't, so I am especially motivated to get that one done and out.
A honest and insightful post about a phenomenon I assume occurs more often than we realise in the creative world. My version? I am dead set convinced (not really but I also love to lean in to the drama 😆) that the creators of Squid Game overheard me telling my husband a few years before the show came out that I wanted to write a book about a post-apocalyptic reality game show where contestants had to battle it out and engage in increasingly violent and disturbing acts for the chance to win $50 million dollars. Crazy, right?! 😂😂