They stole my idea!

I was looking back over the seventy-plus livestreams I've done over the last two years.

(That’s more than seventy hours of free training, storytellers! If you’re not subscribed to the YouTube channel, please do that by clicking here.)

Can you guess what the most-viewed topic is? 

It’s this: Have All the Good Stories Already Been Written?

I was surprised too, but I guess shouldn’t be. The scary subject of originality comes up again and again for writers.

Why does it always seem to happen that when we start working on a great idea for a story, all of a sudden we discover ten other books about to come out on the same subject? 

For many writers this can be deflating. It was OUR idea, after all! It’s not like we stole it. 

But it’s not like those other writers stole it, either. 

So how should we think about the inevitable discovery that we may not be walking on untrodden ground with our subject matter? Should we change what we’re doing? Resign ourselves to feeling unoriginal? Or is there another, more productive way to think about this? That's the topic of this livestream.