by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
One of the worst experiences of my life to date was when Annie Shapiro “stole” ROKon Magazine from me by bringing back (in secret) without me. In hindsight, I was setting myself up for a fall because I was not exactly in the greatest state of mind at the time and so she just proved that she loved the magazine more than I did.
But the experience has left me really paranoid about someone “stealing” the idea for the novel I’m working on. My paranoid theory is that a woman I gave the fleshed out outline to in hopes she might advise me on it — only to promptly ghost me — somehow has connections in Hollywood. My fear is she sent what I gave her to someone in LA and it’s good enough that they’re going to cherry pick the best bits of the concept for a screenplay.
This is obviously very bonkers.
While I suppose it’s possible something like that could happen, much of the theory is being created out of whole cloth. I have no idea if she would even do such a thing if she could. And getting a screenplay produced is really tough — even with contacts in the business.
And, yet, someone else looked at some of my musings about when I am going to query this novel — fall 2023 — and so of course my paranoia is they’re gauging how they steal a march on me by getting a movie produced before I have to me to even query the thing.
The more I think about it, the more this seems like just the insecurities of a first time, aspiring novelist. I have no idea what the motives of the people looking at the link are — it could be that they’re just interested in when they might expect to see the novel available to read.
The only reason why this particular situation has left me a little uneasy is I think the ping was coming from a Slack channel. So, of course my paranoid that some Hollywood producers were talking to each other in a corporate Slack channel about my novel and they were trying to figure out how to screw me over.
The more I think about it, the more I realize this is very bonkers and almost completely unfounded. And, besides, I would have to be a little bit flattered if such a thing happened — at least my baby would get to be created, even if not by me. AND it would prove that I was able to create a concept that real people with real money were willing to produce into a movie — even if not with me.
If my worse case scenario did happen, I would just lick my wounds and pivot to one of the other stories I’m working on in the back of my mind. And this point, my biggest concern is I’m just old and if I want to ever publish a novel I’ve got to get it done sooner rather than later.
