New Voyages

To boldly go where no one has gone before.

That's sort of my goal as a writer. And it may sound a tad familiar, but hey, it's tough to come up with new stuff all the time no matter how hard we try.

They say there are no new plots. The way to stand out in this business is to take one of the existing plots [there's a finite number, I'm told, but I don't recall what it is at the moment] and make it unique in some way.

It sounds easy, but one of the problems with this seemingly simple strategy is that once you think something, once you write it down, once you say the words, its out there. It's floating through space where someone else can pick it up. I'm not talking about advertising your WIP synopsis on a 10,000-member loop and then wondering why someone else turns up writing a similar book. I'm talking about having an idea and whispering it to your cat, or thinking about it really loudly while you're driving to the store. It doesn't matter how closely you guard it, someone else has already thought of it.

You might think the answer to this is to give up and start over, but someone will only come along and scoop up your next idea, too. So the only thing you can do is just write it anyway.

There's nothing new under the sun, so they say. So rather than agonize over the fact that your hard won idea sounds an awful lot like the latest bestseller that you haven't even read yet, just write it.

And then make it unique. Give it your own twist, you're signature style, your special something and make it great and you're home free.

How do you do that? Well, when I figure that out, I'll let you know.