Tests

Ow, I ache. My hands, my legs, the scratches on my arms, everything hurts. The raspberry thicket is considerably smaller today but my muscles aren't thanking me. Nor are my knees thanking me for the work I've done so far on the cabinet drawer installation. My brain is actually cringing because I'm eyeing the tax files with the same determination. But I'm not ready to give into those wussy body parts. I was tested recently, again, and found out I'd fallen face first into the road ... again.

Let me set the stage for you. About ten years ago, a pair of memorable characters decided they wanted to live in my brain for awhile. Actually, they decided they wanted their own series (mystery), but though I put them on paper, though I plotted out the first of what I thought would be several books, none of it had that spark, that magical something that would give it a life of its own. It was flat. Maybe, as usual, I overplanned, or maybe I was only writing a mystery because one of my friends had hit it big with her series (and so I was trying to be what I wasn't); for whatever reason, the books died. But the characters didn't.

Over the years, both of them have occasionally popped their phantom heads into my twisted little psyche, just to see if I was ready to let them tell their story. I always peeked into their lives, saw the same old May-December friendship-turned-uneasy-partnership, the tired I-started-with-amnesia-but-played-Watson-to-her-Holmes-while-she-saved-my-ass world that I'd once created. And, since it was still as dull as I remembered, I politely sent them back to their little brain-rooms to sulk and grouse - but not grow.

Or so I thought. About two weeks ago, my narrator character lifted her stubborn chin and told me she's won't play side kick to the older woman, and - by the way - she's not the Girl Scout I seemed to think she is but a girl with a past, an attitude, a brain, and - oh, yeah, one other thing ... well, she did what every author loves - she came to life. Even better, she sparked something in the other one, an attitude and a secretive side I didn't know she had. It was like going from black-and-white Kansas into Technicolor Oz, all in one day.

I was thrilled. And I started telling their story.

Yesterday, I found out a much-anticipated new TV show has a main character with a similar-but-different background and - what's worse - the same name. Now, I really love my girl's name. I really love her background. And I really love the thread by which she grows during the novels' run. So much so that I don't know if I can change them. Yes, the show's "high concept" is different from the one in my world, and the other characters and basic plotlines I read about are nowhere even close. But there's enough overlap that my stuff feels derivative instead of original, as if I'm copying the show (even though I'm not). And while it sometimes seems as if Hollywood has only one idea and one look that they continue to recycle for a season or even a decade - and they get away with it - books are different. Derivative is bad.
Am I upset? Yes, but not for the reasons you might think. See, I could have written the book, boring though it was, ten years ago. It would have sold despite its issues (trust me). I would have learned more as I continued. And by the third or fourth book, both my people and I would have grown enough that even if it never made any bestseller lists, even though the producer would never have read it, this new TV thing would be considered derivative of my stuff instead of the other way around.

It's all about opportunity. I'm trying to learn to grab it when it's offered - today I spent the morning groaning in pain as I cut back raspberry canes, simply because we finally have mild weather. Tomorrow I will finish all outdoorsy stuff while the temperatures hold, and by Wednesday (when the mercury will fall again) I'll be aching in both brain and body because of all the indoor stuff I'm going to finish. Thursday I will - I will - report that I have cleared my list of everything I am able to clear, that I've even begun a new list - and at the top is "begin a novel without thinking it to death."

With my current-but-seemingly-copied heroine? I don't know. Maybe I can change her name, up the ante somewhere, swap things around so the story no longer feels like it's not mine. But not right now. The key is to work on something, anything, and move forward ... to somewhere other than the stagnant place I have now. I've come so far with things like raspberries and curbside shopping, but this area still eludes me. Yet I know that if I can learn it here, then maybe - just maybe - it will translate everywhere. Finally. Because I honestly believe we don't fail the tests we're given in life, ever - we just take them over and over until we pass. Truth is, I'm really tired of taking this one. And somehow I suspect that someone's pretty tired of giving it, too.

Wouldn't you be?