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« on: August 26, 2010, 04:22:49 PM »
Well this sounds like a good place to say hello and ask a question;
Hello! Like everyon else here I aspire to be a writer though I have nothing, not even a short story that has been completed enough to be a short story; no wait there is one I sent into a contest somehwere. Sadly I am easily distracted and have TOO many ideas to write myself but here are some highlights:
A science fiction series set in an alternate universe where startships are made of wood, swashbuckling is the norm and the lead character is a Zombie. It has inadvertantly become a vehicle for a large mportion of sci/fi, fantasy and internet memes (zombies, Pirates, Nonjas, Robots, psychics etc...). Its not very devloped but I have a rough outline.
And its not all about the memes, has intrigue, action, some romance and lots of dirty little secrets.
A near future Multi-generation Superhero story with a Unique (as far as I know) origin story for the super-heroic gifts and a fair mix of intrigues and politics and of course love. This story/setting has been in development of one form or another for close on fufteen years now and I think I've got it down to where I want it to be...but I haven't touched it in some time now.
A modern-day fairy-tale story (of the original brothers Grimm variety) of a group of high-school kids and some fo their teachers stumbling into the a secret haven for strange creatures and beings. All of the characters have a reason for being there and the story ranges across a multitude of mythologies and again more horror, intrigue and politics etc...It's one of my newest and more original ideas.
As an added bonus, for amusement sake, I have a short idea about what would happen if the Greek/Roman, Norse and other Old Gods were reborn in new bodies; the short scene I wrote had Thor and Ares sitting in a beach-bar run by Balor one-eye ogling girls in swimsuits...yes its intended to be humorous, if I ever get anything else written for it.
My best developed and most worked-on series is a pure fantasy series set in a world I've been working on for probably as long as the super-hero story and likewise has gone through MANY incarnations. It's also the only project I've been semi-actively working on of late. Like all of my stories it has elements of intrigue, politics, horror and strained romance. It also includes a moslty full though lost origin story and ancient long-buried and mostly forgotten evils.
And thus we come to my question...almost. In this series there are a number of races based on blendings of humans and other elements whether plant, animal or the elements themselves. Amongst them is a wolf-man species I call the "Canen" and have been fairly happy with their hunter-like nomadic mentality.
Then this year I started reading Jim's Codex Alera and discovered his wolf-man species, the "Canim"...or "Cane" for short. You see my problem? I don't want to have a race that is too similar to Jim's creation, but I don't want to lose them either. At one point they were a Bull-man/Minotaur species called the "Thaur" which I liked well enough, but were too close to Wow's Tauren so I changed it to avoid any possible lawsuits. I'm trying to be as original as possible in my ideas and concepts so I don't want to be coying someone elses ideas, even if I've been workin on my book for a very long time.
Any suggestions on how to handle this? Should I even be worried about it?