CRAP!

"The hardest thing in this world is to survive in it."
- Victor Standish

{Before I get into the meat of this post --

D.G. Hudson, my good friend, faces a severe family crisis and could use your prayers and positive healing thoughts. Thank you.}

http://www.amazon.com/Artful-Novel-Peter-David-ebook/dp/B00HFGJN82/

Among the choices this month for AMAZON'S FIRST PROGRAM for PRIME members was 

ARTFUL by Peter David, a popular Sci Fi and Comic author.

Oliver Twist is one of the most well-known stories ever told,

 about a young orphan who has to survive the mean streets of London before ultimately being rescued by a kindly benefactor.

But it is his friend, the Artful Dodger, who has the far more intriguing tale,

filled with more adventure and excitement than anything boring Oliver could possibly get up to.

Throw in some vampires and a plot to overthrow the British monarchy,

and what you have is the thrilling account that Charles Dickens was too scared to share with the world.

From the brilliant mind of novelist and comic book veteran Peter David, Artful

is the dark, funny, and action-packed story of one of the most fascinating characters in literary history.

I read this synopsis and said aloud:

"Crap."

My Victor Standish is the Artful Dodger of the French Quarter with wit, spunk, and hidden resources.

Have you ever written a novel only to find another novel with a similar plot BY A MORE FAMOUS AUTHOR?

Yeah: Crap.

But then I thought:

The fact that novels have plots in common is of no more importance than two people both having blue eyes.

The plot is the WHY?  But plots are of various depths.

The deeper in the ocean you go, the bigger the fish become.

What constitutes the characters in a novel is what they reveal to us.

Characters in the plot connect us with the vastness of our own secret lives which is endlessly explorable.

Two similar plots by different authors can become like night and day by the actions and thoughts of the characters driving those plots.

Some characters's purposeless regard fall, like the sun and rain, on all alike --

vacant when there is nothing to reflect.

Other characters' natures strike fire upon their world according to the storms brewing inside them

and inside the souls of those about them. 

No two people see those protagonists quite alike.

So too, with authors.

No two authors will tell the same story in the same way. 

Their natures, craft, and outlook will shape a similar plot very differently.

Someone may tell a similar tale, but no one will tell it YOUR WAY.

And for those of you who have missed VICTOR STANDISH,
I am midway through his last adventure before entering New Orleans:

CARNIVAL OF THE DAMNED

 

I have to finish THE STARS BLEED AT MIDNIGHT first.

 

Not for the reason you might be thinking ... 

 

Victor's nemesis is the animated mummy, Princess Shert Nebti.

 

As in those classic Universal black & white Mummy movies,

the Princess is seeking revenge on the son of the man who thwarted her in THE STARS BLEED AT MIDNIGHT. 

The trick will be finding the time and the health to write them!