Had a burst of energy last night. Bolted out of bed (oh man these hotel mattresses are SOO soft!) at 2:30am and typed for 45 minutes without stopping. I had a great idea and I wanted to get it written down before I lost it. It’s one of the few times I’ve had an idea come to me fully intact. Concept, conflict, subplots, resolution, some of the key characters… I even had a title, which is extremely rare for me! I usually write Sci-Fi or Horror but I almost never use space as the backdrop. It seems too obvious. But, this was going to be different; I had a great story to tell and about half of it would take place in space. That means I have a lot of research to do. I was very excited! After getting it all typed out and outlined, I thought about staying up and writing some more but I decided to hit it fresh this morning and went back to bed.
I woke up this morning, brewed my coffee, checked on Teresa and Becca to make sure the storm hasn’t blown them away and then checked my e-mail. I was deliberately waiting on getting back to the writing. I knew I had a winner of an idea on my hands and I wanted to enjoy the moment. So when I finally opened up the file and re-read what I wrote last night, it was sufficiently built up enough in my head to make the disappointment all the more tragic. I hadn’t come up with a beautiful new idea. All I did was re-write “Capricorn One” with elements of “Contact” in it. DAMN! I knew this was a great story, I just thought it was mine!
Now we know where these horrible Hollywood re-writes and remakes come from. Writers that get to this point and push forward anyway. Oh well, back to square one.
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