Has someone written your idea first? Moira Butterfield

It happens to me on a regular basis. I think up an idea –  an approach to a subject that might be turned into a book (in my case it’s generally kid’s non-fiction). I put this idea on my ‘think about it soon’ list. Before I get round to it a version appears on Instagram. It’s been published! Everyone says it’s original and great thinking! Grrrrrrrr! 

Grumpy author, having just seen her idea already written. 

Does it happen to you? If you’re a regular author I’ll bet it has at some point. 

 It’s deeply irritating for quite a while, even though there is a sensible explanation. Ideas come from the myriad things we see and hear, and others might come upon them from the prevailing zeitgeist, too. I have this picture in my mind of small invisible ideas-with-wings whizzing around everyone like birds – zeitgeist birds, perhaps. They change shape depending on the things that happen to people in the world.  They’re a bit like little Pokemon, I suppose, and sometimes you can see them and catch them. (I told you I had a sensible explanation). 

An idea flying around, possibly near you. 

 

 

It’s hard cheese to know that someone else noticed your good idea, gave it a home and put in the time and effort to care for it and grow it more quickly than you did.  

 

When this happens I think there are three things to do. 

 

1)    Stomp around feeling annoyed. Get it out of your system (privately). 

 

2)    Wish the other author’s book well. (In fact if it is successful, the chances are that other publishers will be looking for things in the same area). Seek it out and take a quick look at it to see its approach. before....

 

3. Take your initial idea and work on it. Play with it. Shape it how YOU want. It’s likely to evolve and become a new thing – perhaps on the same subject but with your take and nobody else’s. Your brain is unique, after all. You can make it yours and yours alone, and I reckon that idea will be better and more original than it might ever have been before. 

 

To prove the point, here’s a collage I recently made of me and my own brain. Make your own collage of yourself and yours will be entirely different – though still a collage. 

My head in collage form. 

 A good idea came to you. It won’t drift away unless you want it to. Catch it! 

 

Moira Butterfield is an author of many children’s books sold around the world, including WELCOME TO OUR WORLD (Nosy Crow), the LOOK WHAT I FOUND series (National Trust/Nosy Crow) and THE SECRET LIFE series (Happy Yak).

Moira Butterfield

www.moirabutterfield.co.uk

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