I Could Use Some Advice. Or Barring That, A Boot To The Head.

The Word is… Kaplahr. It’s a nice word, one full of unvented frustration, and full on head-explodey rage.

*Clears Throat* KAPLAHR.

A few weeks ago, my brother forwarded me this article. A new HBO series is being produced about a world in which vampires and regular people live in more or less harmony. Out in the open. They beat me to the punch. Kaplahr.

Now: I want to state for the record, up front, that I had no assumptions about Nocturne. It was a good idea, and I turned it into a TV pilot and sent it to Scriptapalooza so it could get read by the right people. I didn’t know what was going to happen with it (still don’t), but I had hope. Anything was possible.

Or it was, until HBO planted their flag. They didn’t steal my idea. I’m not so crazy or so paranoid to think that for a New York minute. The show is evidently based off a series of books I’ve never heard of; we both just had the same idea. And Charlaine Harris had gotten to it first.

Shit.

That was then. That was then, I shrugged it off as best I could, and I threw myself into my next project: another comic book idea.

And that makes two perfectly good story ideas shot straight down the toilet in less than a month.

I’m a bit pissed off. Not at anyone in particular, and certainly not the writers at Marvel Comics. It’s their job to be creative and come up with new story ideas. They did their job. I was just hoping they wouldn’t use that idea.

I’m feeling more than a little deflated. I have no idea what to do next, and the second I do come up with something reasonably new, who’s to say I wouldn’t get beaten to the punch a third time? Or a fourth? What the heck do I do?

Anyone?