When I was 13 it took me 3 years to write a novel...okay a novella called Various Shades of Blue about a society living in a dome, which was made from carboxygememtellan - carbon, oxygen and a miraculous unbreakable gel that could breathe. At the age of 13! I was a genius!
This dome was the Blue Dome - you could tell a person's status by what shade of blue they were wearing, and there were reportedly distant domes of red and green and yellow.
When the movie Logan's Run came out in the mid-70's I was stunned to see that it was in many ways the same story-line as my novella; an apparently idyllic society being told that the planet had been decimated by natural and man-made disasters and that there was no life beyond the domes. Rumours of 'The Safe City', and population control by being euthanized when you turn 30. The main characters flee the dome and risk their lives to find out the truth.
My story ended up with the characters who had not been killed-off (sorry BFF Shelagh - I know you didn't take kindly to loosing one of them...) huddled in a cave making ten new rules, or should I say commandments that the future (and free) generations should live by to ensure that the planet never gets in to the same sorry state again. (A genius I tell you!)
The last descriptive piece at the end of the book makes subtle reference to the gills in the character's necks - make of that what you will.
The last descriptive piece at the end of the book makes subtle reference to the gills in the character's necks - make of that what you will.
On discovering that my story had been cruelly stolen I went through my list of suspects; my parents - no they had been the ones that alerted me to the movie and dad was still driving his seen-better-days Cortina; the three teachers who had read (and spell-checked) my masterpiece, and the aforementioned Shelagh who might still be holding a grudge.
Luckily before court proceedings started I discovered that the movie was based on a book that had been published in 1967. Two years before I came up with the idea. This all occurred while I was living in Cyprus, which might explain why none of my beta-testers had read Logan's Run. It took years for anything to filter through; the more news-worthy or fashionable it was the longer it took.
If someone else puts out an idea similar to yours try and console yourself with the phrase 'Great minds think alike'. No? It didn't work for me either. But it has happened throughout history; just one hour before Alexander Graham Bell registered his patent for the telephone in 1876, Elisha Gray patented his design. After years of litigation, the patent went to Bell. In 1669, the principles of differential calculus were determined by Sir Isaac Newton in England and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in Germany at about the same time. In 1992 Susie Blenkinsop wore the exact same Laura Ashley midi-skirt and identical Romanesque sandals as I was wearing, to the improv night in the upstairs bar at the Dovecot Theatre in Stockton. So believe me when I say I know your pain.
If someone else puts out an idea similar to yours try and console yourself with the phrase 'Great minds think alike'. No? It didn't work for me either. But it has happened throughout history; just one hour before Alexander Graham Bell registered his patent for the telephone in 1876, Elisha Gray patented his design. After years of litigation, the patent went to Bell. In 1669, the principles of differential calculus were determined by Sir Isaac Newton in England and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in Germany at about the same time. In 1992 Susie Blenkinsop wore the exact same Laura Ashley midi-skirt and identical Romanesque sandals as I was wearing, to the improv night in the upstairs bar at the Dovecot Theatre in Stockton. So believe me when I say I know your pain.
Yes, I could be bitter and think about the three wasted writing-years but I prefer to think of it as earning my writing chops. (What does that even mean?) Anyway, the novel I'm working on now is about a girl on a train - I just know it's a winner!
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