Ah, NaNoWriMo. That time of year when thoughts turn to the crazy challenge of cranking out fifty thousand words in thirty days.
Didn’t make it this year.
I got to just over 3,000 words. I was falling behind on the average daily wordcount needed by day 3, but figured I could still recover. After all, there was plenty of time. My characters weren’t really talking to me though, and I struggled a little with where the plot was going.
Then I saw this.
It stopped me in my writing tracks. My NaNo story involved a mysterious library where strange things happened. There was even a dragon involved. It was spooky. Characters running around doing Exciting Things and Saving The Day. In a library. With a dragon.
Don’t get me wrong, the tv series looks like a huge amount of fun. But the story? Someone had done it. Turns out they’d done it many years ago and turned it into a series of made-for-tv movies.
Confidence dented, I pretty much gave up. Kept poking and prodding at the fledgling story, wondering what I could do with it.
Then the double whammy. I read a story excerpt from Genevieve Cogman’s The Invisible Library (coming out in January 2015).
“THINK DOCTOR WHO WITH LIBRARIAN SPIES”
Well, that did it. The opening chapter of The Invisible Library was utterly brilliant, and what’s more, *exactly* what I wanted my story to be like. Soon afterwards I was lucky enough to get an advance copy of The Invisible Library – it’s just as good as the opening chapter promised to be.
So my NaNo Library story languishes in the cloud. I’ve still got a few ideas, and have continued to poke and prod at it. Maybe I’ll write it yet – after all it’s not *quite* like the others.
After all, Neil Gaiman once said:
“Trust dreams. Trust your heart, and trust your story.”
NaNoWriMo may be over, but that doesn’t mean the writing stops.
The writing never stops. Long may the story continue.
espresso coco 
Great post. I once had a dear friend ask me how I write when so many stories already exist, how I don’t copy things. Honestly, I didn’t know how to answer her, except that I don’t plagiarize and I know that every story I write is born from the hundreds, if not thousands, I’ve read and heard before it. That said, I totally hate it when I think I have a cool idea and then realize quite a few people have already had and succeeded with that cool idea.
Aaaaand now I really want to watch that show and read that book!