by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
The moment I’ve been dreading has happened — someone has stolen a march on me with this novel I’m working on. It’s called AnnieBot and it seems on the face of things, an identical premise to what I’ve been working on the last year or so.
I’ve ordered it so I can read it to see how similar it is in detail, but just the idea that essentially my story has already been told is enough to rattle my cage some.
Now, I have two paths before me.
On one hand, I can give up. The story I want to tell has already been told and so I can move on to the next concept. (I have lots of them.)
Meanwhile, I can also double down and finish my novel, despite something very similar having been written. I at least know what my genre of novel is now and unless AnnieBot is a beat-for-beat telling of my novel, I don’t see why, by definition, I can’t finish this novel and query it.
A lot will depend on what I read in a few days when it arrives. But I just hate the idea of giving up just because someone else has written something similar. I’ve invested a lot in this novel and I think it’s really good.
