by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I’ve been feeling pretty paranoid since I saw someone from Hollywood snooping around this blog in my Webstats interested in how long it’s going to take me to start querying my first novel. My fear is that when I sent my outline to a manuscript consultant, she sent it to someone she knows in Hollywood and they’re going to use it as the basis of a screenplay.
This is completely bonkers for a number of reasons.
One, I’m making a connection that I just have no idea is there. Just because I sent the outline to her, doesn’t mean she took the next step of sending it to someone else. And I have no idea if she has any connections in Hollywood she could send it to in the first place. I do know, however, from personal experience that the moment you send something to someone, it inevitably gets passed around.
But, still, I’m giving the two events a connection and a narrative that just doesn’t exist in real life. I can’t let my personal insecurities about such things overwhelm me.
I guess some of it is what happened with ROKon Magazine. Annie Shapiro really did “steal” the magazine from me, bringing it back in secret behind my back, so once bitten twice shy and all that. And I suppose I just have to process the possibility that Hollywood might “steal” my idea, even though it’s definitely just a “possibility” and not a “probability.”
I just can’t let this irrational fear consume me. It’s embarrassing how much time I’ve thought about this the last few days. But I just can’t allow such an irrational fear stop me from moving forward. As I keep saying — make decisions on what you do know, not on what you don’t know.
And I think I’m probably be a bit full of myself to even think it’s possible that Hollywood would “steal” my idea in the first place. I know how hard it is to get ANYTHING produced and my outline wasn’t THAT good.
It’s possible that the person I saw in my Webstats from LA was simply curious when the novel I’m working on might come out and that’s it. No nefarious plot against me. That definitely seems to make a lot more sense than my paranoid delusions.
