It had to happen sooner or later

[lethargic_man]

It had to happen sooner or later: I was cycling home from work the other day, when I had a story idea. (Actually an idea at the edge of a fuzzy area of ideas I had had before.) Now what am I going to do with it?

This had to happen when the two people most likely to tell me to write the story, rysmiel and green_knight are both away from LJ. It would be easy, actually, to tell myself other people have probably thought of the idea before, and done a better job with it.

Speaking of which, an idle thought left me thinking what an interesting steampunk setting would be the alternate world populated with towers by the Victorian engineer Isengard Kingdom Brunel. A quick Google reveals I've not been the first to have the idea. Most of the hits appear to be genuine mistakes, though.

At least one, however, isn't: a blog whose top entry on the appropriate archive page reads:

The Bible is a collection of scriptures that form the basis of the Christian religion. It includes stories, psalms, pictures and pop-up sections.

It comes in two parts, the left testament and the right testament. The former was so called because it was left to Christians by their forefathers. It tells the history of the ancient tribes of the near East, and the prophets and kings who led them. It is also the source of most of our knowledge about the dinosaurs.

The right testament includes the stories of Jesus and his Apostles: Paul, Simon, Garfunkel, Andi Peters, David Jason, Jimmy Kranky, and Peter formerly known as the artist formerly known as Prince.

Today you will often find bibles in hotel rooms. They are left there by God, who is omniscient and omnipresent but sometimes a bit forgetful.

I scrolled down a bit more and got as far as reading:

Monuments are sculptures or structures with ritual or symbolic value.

Famous examples include Stonehenge in Wiltshire, Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square, and Ted Heath, who is frozen in carbonite and on display in Birmingham city centre.

...before I had to stop because I was laughing so much.

Comments

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

other people have probably thought of the idea before, and done a better job with it

Pfft. (I am not *that* away from LJ.)

Taking that to the logical conclusion, there would be only a handful of people so skilled that they should write. I believe it would deprive the world of many wonderful stories.

Go for it!

[zsero.livejournal.com]

A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!

[liv]

Do you know about verb_noire? Basically in response to the latest racism imbroglio with a bunch of quite senior people in the SF world behaving really badly, some people decided to deal with the problem of SF being too white by setting up their own press. I wonder if they might be interested in your Plains Indians stories, or some of your original takes on vampires. (They specifically say they welcome white writers if the stories contain non-white major characters.) I know you're not really writing so much any more, but you have a lot of old stories and this might be a new market for them?

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

Do you know about verb_noire?

No, I'm completely out of it. Thanks for letting me know about it.

Basically in response to the latest racism imbroglio with a bunch of quite senior people in the SF world behaving really badly, some people decided to deal with the problem of SF being too white by setting up their own press. I wonder if they might be interested in your Plains Indians stories, or some of your original takes on vampires.

What Plains Indians stories? I only ever came up with one, which I never wrote. (Indeed, there's only two of my stories which are eligible... but that's two more than zero.) Not that I'd expect you to remember everything I wrote, but I'm intrigued as to what Plains Indians stories you remember me as having wrote. :o)

(They specifically say they welcome white writers if the stories contain non-white major characters.) I know you're not really writing so much any more, but you have a lot of old stories and this might be a new market for them?

<has a look> Hmm, they don't seem to say anywhere whether they'll be a paying market... (Not that I'm expecting to make a bomb, but non-paying markets don't give you writing-CV brownie points.)

[liv]

From their guidelines: Payment will be dependent upon sales, as each published author will received a percentage of the sales price.. Does that count as a paying market for brownie points purposes?

I didn't realize you'd never written the Plains Indians story; I knew I hadn't read it, but had assumed it was one of those you thought didn't suit me. But you told me a lot about your research into that culture and what happened to it.