The Art of The Steal

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There is absolutely nothing worse than striking upon the most brilliant idea, working it, honing it, shaping it, then opening Publisher's Marketplace or Variety and seeing your perfect idea, one that you've never even discussed with anyone, SOLD for a ton of money. 

It happens so often that you have to wonder if all artists' brains are wired together. I've had it happen many times. It happens to my friends. It happens to all of us. It's frustrating, and annoying, and demoralizing, especially when your concept is either done really, really well and makes millions, or it's butchered into pieces. Either way, your brilliant idea is done.

Or is it?

This is why I repeat the adage - THERE ARE ONLY SEVEN ORIGINAL PLOT CONCEPTS.

Seven.

It's all in the treatment, that's what sets the seven stories apart. We're all so wildly different: different life experiences, different living arrangements, different parts of the country with different local news stories that capture our attention. While ideas may germinate and look similar on the surface, it's rare that they're actually stolen. It happens, though. Check out this story from my friend Doug Richardson, screenwriter extraordinaire. It's our nightmare.

There's another side to this problem. When you've pitched an idea, it doesn't sell, and then, a year later, someone comes out of the blue with an idea eerily similar to yours and it's snapped up.

Timing? Or stealing?

Hey, plagiarism happens, we see it in the news all the time. The stealing of concepts, though, that's a much more amorphous area. Do we own our ideas? Hollywood screenwriters register their concepts; we fiction writers don't have that mechanism in our world. We should. We really should. 

This is why new writers often refuse to submit, because they're afraid their idea will be stolen. I tell them again and again - that would never happen. Publishing is a place of integrity, they aren't in the business of stealing people's ideas and giving them to others.

And yet, and yet, and yet... a conversation overhead plants a seed, more conversations are had, and the next thing you know, a deal's been struck. It's just the way the world works.

Happily, since we are all so very different, an original concept will rarely, if ever, mimic your story. 

Think about it this way. Every house is built using the same tools - wood, nails, hammers - yet look at the variety of styles and colors and shapes. Story is similar. The basic premise might be there, but the finished product will vary wildly from page to page.

The best thing you can do when you have a brilliant idea is write it, and submit it. Keep it to yourself until you're ready to share. And if the unthinkable happens, and another writer scores a deal on a book that is so close to your own you're gnashing your teeth? Well, I'll leave that up to you, but there are always ways to get your sweet revenge. 

Best Links of the Week

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If you read anything this week - this is the link you want to, no, MUST read. The 'Busy' Trap  We are all so damn busy, and what are we really accomplishing? Creative energy demands playtime.

Since I have great respect for the well done femme fatale.... An Interview with Kim Krizan on Writing, Creativity and Channeling Your Inner Femme Fatale | Script Magazine

Deanna Raybourn has a great piece about book buying -  In which we're buying books - answering a question about where we authors prefer for readers to buy our books. In summation, pretty much anywhere that isn't a used store, so we can afford to eat too.

Laura Benedict has a Spooky Start to October: A Buggy Short Story, Book Prizes, and a Sparkly New Ad 

Tess Gerritsen breaks it down for you in Writing the slam-bam thriller climax  This is superb for new writers trying to figure out how to end their books with a bang.

Writer Unboxed » Learning from Old Favourites  Sometimes you just have to reread a favorite book to get your groove on, especially when you're on deadline. There's nothing more rejuvenating than diving into a comfort read.

And last, but not least - Enhanced 'Shakesperience' to help make sense of Bard  I love what they're planning - though the cost is a bit much. I took a Shakepeare course that used all of Patrick Stewart's Shakespearean roles to deconstruct the plays, and it changed the way I looked at the Bard forever. 

Have a lovely Sunday!

My Writing Tools

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In response to Donna Fobert's Facebook question about what writing program I use, and a great post by John Scalzi on his technological makeup, I thought I'd run through all my writing tools. 

Laptop: I write on a MacBook Pro that just celebrated it's third birthday. It's my first Mac, and I am a total convert. But it's full - I'm talking barely 8 GB left. So I've just bought a Mac Mini, which hasn't arrived yet, to be my desktop. It will be a back up, a surfing computer, and I'll be eliminating the Internet as much as possible from this laptop. When this one goes, I'll get a MacAir, though I'm debating between the 13' and the 11"

Browser: I used to be a complete Firefox evangelist, but something happened and they've really crashed and burned. I spent some time on Chrome, which is great, but I use Safari 99% of the time. My quibble is it won't show the favicons for websites in the toolbar, but that's not a biggie. It's quick and reliable.

Mail: Gmail, and Sparrow. I'm a Gmail fanatic, love how organized I can be on it. Sparrow is lovely too, so easy to categorize and file my stuff.  

RSS Reader: Reeder for Mac on the laptop, Mr. Reader on the iPad. Both can be found in the app store.

Website and Blog: Squarespace - I love the CMS here - it's straightforward and easy to use, and I'm not a fan of Wordpress, because it's just too complicated. Squarespace is great for people who are tech savvy but don't have programming skills.

Twitter: I use Hootsuite for the analytics, posting to multiple accounts, scheduling etc., and use it to check my Facebook pages, but for a quick surf of Twitter, Tweetbot is my go to across all my devices. Elegant and simple.

Facebook: Hootsuite and web version, I'm not a fan of the Facebook app. I have two accounts and five pages I manage, so I try to keep it as simple as possible.

Tablet: iPad 2 - I use it for everything - mail, web, movies, music and reading. I'm surprised by how much I like reading on it. I use Barnes and Noble Nook Store for my ebook buying needs, and the Nook app on iPad is great. I also write on it - using Documents To Go, which allows me online cloud access to my files in Word. They sync together with my Dropbox perfectly, making my work ultra portable. I just pair a wireless Apple keyboard and boom goes the dynamite.

EReader: Nook Glowlight - mostly for outside reading that the iPad isn't good for.

Phone: Currently an iPhone 4s, about to be upgraded to a 5. I debated long and hard about doing away with a smartphone entirely, but it's too useful for travel, so I guess I'm stuck. It's in airplane mode a lot.

Online To Do List and Project Management: Wunderlist. I love being able to dump all my projects in one place and add steps to each. Gets it all out of my head.

Note Taker: Evernote. I've been using it for years, and I'm especially excited about their new integration with Moleskine.

Distraction Blocker: Freedom. Turns off my Internet for as long as I need to focus. I'm a Pomodoro, writing in long chunks of time with breaks - usually 120 minutes at a go, so Freedom makes that process very simple. 

Backups: I use Cloud support for everything (hence the Mac Mini winging its way to me - I want something hard and local). Dropbox resides on my computer and I write everything out of it instead of out of My Documents. I have Carbonite, which backs up my Dropbox, I email my working manuscript to myself at the end of every work day, copy it into Scrivener, add the file to a thumb drive, and print every 50 pages. I'm paranoid about losing my work.

Word Tracker: I like metrics, and this is the way I track my fiction word counts.

Paper: I use Clairefontaine spiral bound notebooks for each book - so I can capture all the ideas, outline, whatever I need. A Circa organizer gathers all my research, and I prefer Moleskines for journaling and idea capture. But I always have a stack of 8"x11" yellow legal pads nearby - they're handy and cheap, and I have a weird tic about ruining good paper, so often the lovely notebooks I buy sit unused whilst I scribble all over the cheap stuff. Weird, I know.

Day Runner: I use Google Calendar synced to iCal for everything, but I also have a Quo Vadis Space 24 in red leather that I use as a backup, plus its great for yearly and monthly planning. I like being able to see my year in one place, and I love the week on the left side and notes on the right. My To Do list goes there.

And now to the Writing Software:

I use both Word for Mac 2011 and Scrivener. Word is a throwback from my PC days, one I can't seem to shake. I wrote 9 books in it, and it's still my go to. Now, Scrivener is the newcomer to my system. It took three tries to figure it out, and I finally wrote an entire book in it last year. I've never been a sectional writer, instead looking at the whole. If you write in chapters, or scenes, Scrivener is the way to go. Also, it makes it brilliantly easy to move stuff around. Word's copy and paste function is a handicap when you see how easy it is to restructure chapters and scenes in Scrivener.

For a great series of essays about the practical usage and applications of Scrivener for storytelling, I highly recommend reading David Hewson's blog. He's done a great job demystifying the hows of this awesome software.

When I start a book, I open a Scrivener file. I accumulate research, journal the book, build characters - all the things I used to do on my yellow legal pads. And it's awesome to have it all in one place. But....

I also find myself getting bogged down when I use Scrivener. I think more about structure and less about story. I think about the pieces, and that makes my story suffer. The book I'm writing now, with Catherine Coulter, JEWEL OF THE LION, has moved back and forth between the two programs about 8 times, and now I've given up and am writing in Word again. 

Word's got the new distraction free view which I like a lot. I can shut everything out and just write, which is the point of all this anyway, right?

I still feel like I have too many tools. I'd love to get everything down to just one notebook. But in happy making news, I've managed to actual move into my office, where I'm leaving all these tool (minus the iPad) at night so I can try to shut some of this off! It's strange how attached I've become to my office at last - the creative energy is flowing and it's cozy, so I'm pleased with this big transition upstairs instead of spreading everything out across the living room. 

So that's it, folks. How about you - anything you're absolutely in love with tool wise? And if I forgot anything, feel free to ask. 

(Also, a question. I spent 6 years blogging on Fridays, but have - for some unknown reason - tried to move this blog to Thursdays. I'm debating moving it back - tell me which you prefer, okay? Thursday or Friday?)

Best Links of the Week

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9 Unfinished Novels by Great Writers « PWxyz  This is my favorite story of the week.

Thinking in Blocks of Time  A superb way of looking at the marathon that is novel writing. I think new writers get discouraged when they realize just how much time is involved in writing a novel.

From the Terrible Mind of Chuck Wendig, 25 Ways To Plot, Plan and Prep Your Story This is more good advice - the more prepared you are for the journey ahead, the easier you will find your task. Especially useful with NaNoWriMo coming up in November. 

Also from the Terrible Mind of Chuck Wendig, 25 Things You Should Do Before Starting Your Next Novel Just a note from our sponsors, please DO NOT read this if you're easily offended grossed out or otherwise delicate. Chuck's sensibilities are not for the faint of heart, but his premises are incredibly sound.

Kristine Rusch writes a hugely important article why writers should avoid exclusivity situations, Content is King Why would you want to sell in a single channel, when that channel has the power to do whatever the heck it wants with your product? Too much risk, and you alienate multiple other segments.

In the awesome news category, Barbara’s Expands into 40 Macy’s Stores  Any news about NEW bookstores opening, however modest, is GREAT news to hear.

A seriously honest interview on Bryon Quertermous's Coping with Sanity Blog: Frank Wheeler shares the darkness. It consumes us all from time to time, and writing is the lifeline.

The Divine Deanna Raybourn has In which we're talking beginnings - a wonderful example of murdering your darlings. Beginnings are my rough spot too - that first 25,000 words just hates me, as I despise it. 

Don't Try to Hone in on a Copy Editor : The New Yorker  - Heh, heh, heh. Which do you prefer - hone in or home in?

And lastly... remember when you had to go to the bookstore for this info? Meet Edelweiss, Your New Favorite Book Discovery Tool I have to tell you - I sort of miss the whole trip to the store to pick up the latest releases, but since Nashville's kind of lacking in the bookstore department, I turn to online resources too.