Read My Shorts

Oi! Neil Gaiman...

Oi! Neil Gaiman...

I’m getting sick of this. Every time I come up with an idea for a story it seems someone else has already pinned it to paper, done a damn good job of it, and beaten me to the gate. For example, I had a wonderful daydream on the train on the way home the other day, and came up with what I thought was a great idea for a story. Premise: a family moves into a new house and inherits a rather interesting cat. The cat it seems starts getting into fights, and the owner decides to investigate. He is rather chilled to find out that the devil is coming to call, and all that stands between them and their doom is the cat. Woohoo! Let’s write that one down, that’s gotta be a world beater.

Ping - email in. “Hey, have you seen this awesome story by Neil Gaiman called The Price, it’s all about a cat who…

Aaargh.

Okay, not to worry. I have a brain (or Brian in this case due to a schizophrenic spelling error) and lots of little ideas that can be made into bigger things. So, how about a re-working of a traditional tale. Brian and I did a re-work of Red Riding Hood, how about Snow White? Now that’s a cool idea. What would happen if the step mom wasn’t actually evil, but Snow White was some sort of vampire. That would explain the pale beauty of the girl, and step-mothers are always considered evil by everyone despite numerous acts of charity and cuddling small children. We could weave in Prince Charming  as some sort of weird fetishist with a taste for pasty undead women and…

Ah come on. Gaiman again! Honestly, I know the guy’s bright, but this just ain’t fair. I had the idea first. Oh. Snow, Glass, Apples was published first in 1994. Damn, this guy’s a bit good isn’t he? So, is this a case of Brian leaking out stuff that I’ve already read at some point in my past or is something weird going on here? Honestly, can’t the man stick to writing Dr Who for a bit to give us poor numpties a chance to get an idea out without it already being done so elegantly? Anyone would think the guy has some sort of time machine that runs around collecting ideas from the future, bringing them back so he can’t write them in the past and get loadsa money from publishing deals. Sheesh.

On the up side, I’ve got to go to London tomorrow, I do love an excuse for a train journey and all the nutters you see on the underground. Hmm… Underground. What’s under the Underground? What lives in the all the dark little corners. Can other things live there, some sort of fantasy realm that co-exists but overlaps with our own? Now that would be great. Better order a new book for my Kindle for the train ride. That one looks interesting, Neverwhere. Ah of course, it’s by Gaiman, had to be with a cover like that. It’s all about a world under London…

Give a guy a break Neil! Right, that’s it. I’m going to out clever you Gaiman. I need to invent a faster, quicker time machine than you obviously have at your beck and call. I shall call it the Time Adaptive Relatavistic Detecting Ideas Sifter. The TARDIS will soon settle your hash old son. I…

Damn.

There are times in a writer’s life where sometimes all you can do is fall back on the first idea you had. When the Gaimans of this world have plundered both your future and past imagination of all your ideas, all you can do is write from your heart.

I’ve always quite liked the idea of a teen fantasy about a boy wizard. I shall call him Larry Jotter. And I shall take the world by storm… let’s see you write that one down Gaiman!

The Beginning of The End

~

As a wee aside here. Gaiman’s short story The Price was one of the reason’s I started writing in the first place. A gobsmackingly awesome story now made into a short animated film hosted for a short while by YouTube (see link on the right). I love the way Gaiman writes. He and others like Pratchett, Niven, Clarke and a few others set my brain (and Brian) on fire.

This little short story(?) was the result of a rather neat little chat one night with Nicholas to whom it is dedicated… with a twist from Brian.