The One That Got Away
are there any new ideas?
It arrived like a kid at a birthday party, festooned and ready to play.
The story went something like this:
A near-Earth object (so named NEO Luxialis) threatens to make contact with Earth, somewhere in the Mid-Atlantic. It cannot be diverted. Extinction is likely. A select group of individuals — politicians, celebrities, wealthy and powerful VIPs — are given passage to a secret underground city, developed by the world’s wealthiest man.
Our protagonist is a ghostwriter, a rare member of the hoi polloi who is admitted to the underground city for her apparent usefulness. In this case, she is tasked with writing the story of the end of the world.
Over the course of the narrative, the writer uncovers the truth: it is all built on lies. There was never an asteroid, nor will the wealthy man’s space program (actually) save it. But he controlled the media, and thus controlled the narrative. The “end of the world” was orchestrated so he could be credited with saving the day, and thus gain control on an unprecedented scale. It’s up to the writer to expose the truth.
The story was a satire, about power and fame and corruption and climate. And though it was a joy to explore — I’m typically not a planner but have never enjoyed outlining so much — it never felt quite right. By which I mean, it never felt quite mine.
While I was working on this story, the movie Don’t Look Up premiered, a satirical take on an extinction-level comet headed for Earth. Then Elon Musk bought Twitter, making my fictional media-tech-trillionaire character feel decidedly less prescient. By the time Musk installed himself in the political sphere, I had long moved on — to a very different novel with a very different concept, which feels more aligned with my personal obsessions.
And so, the tale of NEO Luxialis joined the ranks of projects I did not finish, though elements of it will surely find their homes in future works.
*
Last week, we started watching a TV series (I won’t mention it by name, nor describe elements of the plot because I don’t want to introduce spoilers), and in the first episode, the camera panned back to reveal the action takes place in an underground city.
“Oh!” I said, as recognition seeped into my body. “It’s like my book.”
As I watched the show play out, it bore many striking similarities, but with its own distinct DNA. Where my world was deeply satirical (the underground city could only be accessed via a secret portal built into a Taco Bell dumpster near New York’s LaGuardia airport, then a subterranean train operated by a man called Cerberus), this had a different spin, the creative canyon as wide as the chasm between Jaws, Sharknado, and Twisters. And yet.
I waited for a hit of envy or annoyance or frustration, but it never came. It didn’t feel like a missed opportunity, or a moment not seized. It felt like running into an old friend. A guidepost that my instincts are good, my treatment is worthy. Keep going, it said. If not this one, maybe the next.
*
“Are there any new ideas?” my friend asks.
We’re in a bookstore, where a nearby shelf contains dozens of volumes on the law of attraction. Some are dressed up in neon while others sport gold embossing, some have subtitles about abundance or wealth or “manifesting the life you desire,” yet they all boil down to the same essential concept. Did each author build upon the work of another, or believe their take to be unique?
In the best of cases, where do ideas come from? Whether they swim into our consciousness or surface in dreams or land a la carte, their true origins remain a mystery. Are they born within us, or do we pluck them from the ether?
I am often reminded of the story from Big Magic where Liz Gilbert tells of meeting Ann Patchett and discovering they had each been working on a novel about a “middle-aged spinster from Minnesota who’s been quietly in love with her married boss for many years, who gets involved in a harebrained business scheme down in the Amazon jungle.” When they broke it down, there were differences — in timing, details, voice. But the ideas were too similar to chalk up to mere coincidence.
“Ideas are a disembodied, energetic life form,” she writes. “They are completely separate from us, but capable of interacting with us—albeit strangely…Ideas are driven by a single impulse: to be made manifest.” By her estimation, ideas of all kinds swirl around us until they find a human partner who seems able to bring them to life, and then they pay us a visit.
It’s a magical take from those who say all art is derivative, or who posit that what we believe to be original is born from our subconscious, a well-meaning reinterpretation of something we’ve seen before. But even if there are no new ideas, there are surely new ways to channel them. There is always new wording, new framing, a unique spin. Perhaps the art lies not in the ideas themselves, but in the translation.
It makes me wonder what it means to be original. And what it is worth.
*
After I publish a newsletter, I’ll often receive a message in the ensuing days, from a writer telling me they’re working on a piece about a similar topic. It was already underway, they assure me, they aren’t copying. I thank them for the notice, and I never worry. Though I’ve had the unpleasant experience of discovering work that appears to be airlifted from my own (curiously, those never come with a heads-up), I rarely fret about overlap. I know another writer won’t phrase it the way I would (and vice versa). Our voices are our own.
*
Among the relentless noise of the Internet, someone is currently bemoaning the echo chamber in which we exist. TikTok and reels are all scored with the same few songs. Everywhere you look, there’s a remake, a sequel, a cover, a sample. Thanks to “Instagram face,” even our mugs are starting to look alike. We’ve gone from “everything is copy” to everything is copy-and-paste.
Yet for every seemingly derivative idea, I wonder how many others are out there, doomed to the realm of potential. How many versions of an underground city are buried in a drawer, never to see the light of day? How many sparks of creativity or glimmers of genius will languish indefinitely until they find a channel who is willing to bring them to life?
While there may be no new ideas, there will always be new stories. New moments. New voices. New ways of seeing.
While “the world needs your ideas” is the kind of triteness that gift shop magnets exist for, it doesn’t make it any less true. Each time we create, it is an act of hope, a moment of wonder, a dance with suspended disbelief. A miracle where somehow, from the depths of derivation we are doomed to inhabit, a vision springs forth and lands with a slant that is fully its own.
“Oh,” thinks the reader, as the words meet their temporal lobe and meaning unspools in their mind. “I’ve never heard that before.”
Paid subscribers will receive the weekly card reading on Tuesday. (As well as the aforementioned book club chat dates and the link to book 1:1 readings — I was working out my schedule and thank you for your patience! ❤️)
As always, thank you for reading. x
It really is wild how much magic is swirling all around us, like gold dust in the zeitgeist.
I think writers who are tuned into the magical, the possible, and the creative will often overlap. I actually love it; it means there are more kindred spirits out there. We are all navigating this world with similar eyes, and we need more, not less, of that. Thank you for being one of those spirits.