Well, it's finally happened. I've written the same story twice and didn't realize it until Andy got the second one and kindly suggested I might want to get checked out for early onset Alzheimers.
Most of you know I have a projects folder, where I keep story ideas. A lot of what's in that folder was sent to me by my readers, maybe even some of you who are reading this blog entry. How that works is that, when I'm ready to start a new project, I sift through that folder, pulling up ideas to work on. Sometimes the idea is just a blurb like, "Write a story about a clown who falls in love with a lion tamer and they run away to join the real world."
Or something. You get my drift.
At other times I've done some preliminary work on an idea, writing various parts of it, or maybe starting it and then putting it on the back burner for one reason or another. I have ideas half written in there.
In this case, I think I pulled the idea out and wrote it as the short story called Posing Uncle Bob. I posted that and then went on to do other things. What I didn't know was that the same idea was in the projects folder as a much longer story. Same plot, but told in a different manner. Think of it as Posing Uncle Bob being the idea as a stroke story, and this one being the same idea as a much longer stroke story.
This wasn't an Aplha and Bravo version kind of thing. It really was the same story, just expressed in a longer, more complicated version. And I had worked on some other ideas between writing the short story and then seeing another half-finished version of it.
Now I don't like the idea of writing the same story over again. I've bought more than one Yani CD with the same song on it, and that really pisses me off. At the same time, a lot of effort went into writing the long version.
So I'm not going to post the longer version of "Posing Uncle Bob", which has a different title. Instead, I'm going to package it into a volume of other stories and sell it to people who shop at Amazon and don't have an account at SOL. The Amazon folks don't get to read any of the incest stories I have at SOL (unless they have an SOL account, of course) because Amazon won't publish them, but I have a few tricks up my sleeve to get this one through.
Anyway, I just wanted you to know I haven't just been beating ... er ... I mean slacking off. My mind just hiccuped a few thousand times while I typed.
And before anybody reminds me how recently Posing Uncle Bob was posted (as did Andy), I'd like to mention that, after writing over 300 books and stories, I can't remember every single thing I ever wrote and get to have this kind of mixup once.
Or you can decide I am flirting with dementia. Doesn't matter to me.
Now, as to what I've done other than screw up.
I do have that original fairy tale finished and ready to post that I mentioned in my last blog entry. I just keep forgetting to do it. Soon, I promise. It's only three chapters long, so it will only be on the update pages for three days, so keep an eye out.
And I just sent a fourteen chapter book to Michelle to look over. It will take her and Andy a month or so to put lipstick on the pig's mouth before you see it.
That means I'll be continuing one of the other things I've been dabbling at. I currently have four or five stories I was working on in fits and spurts, until the one I just sent Michelle grabbed me by the balls and squeezed, warning me it wanted to be finished.
Thanks to everybody who has expressed well wishes about my hands. I got the left one operated on but it didn't do much. It might improve, but we won't know for a year or so. I have good days (when I can type) and bad days (when I can type but it hurts a lot so I usually don't). What can I say? Life goes on. Eat your vegetables, kids, and lose weight. You may not understand diabetes, but it will fuck you up. I'm not lying to you.
I get cataract surgery in both eyes during April, and that will hopefully improve things a bit. That means I'll at least be able to see what I'm writing. And the mistakes I'm making.
And that's all the news for now that isn't.
Bob