Writing and Reading Unique Stories

When I first began writing seriously I stressed about the possibility of someone copying one of my masterpieces and making a boatload of money off of it. The poor man’s copyright was my favorite way to protect my work. I’d mail a copy of whatever I’d written to myself and store this gem away unopened, ready to pull out the moment I learned millions was being made off my obviously brilliant work and not a cent of that money reaching my bank account.

Book publishers, in particular, used to roll their eyes at writers and authors who had this fear. It was a telling way that proved the writer didn’t know much about books, writing and for sure nothing at all about the cost to reproduce work, pared against the monetary gain of having gone through the trouble.

Today I laugh about them old days. Given that most of us are copycats as a birth right; our ideas and thoughts imitated variations of life that have happened a thousands times over, is what I find humoring about the whole matter. The only truly unique stories are the tales where the thief not only profits off stolen stories, but actually gets away with it. In other words, nothing truly unique can be copied.

This is what makes memoirs so impressionable. While there are few things that have not already been tried and done, there IS only one you. No one can tell our story in its entire chronological order, complete with our observations, experiences, outcomes, and how we lived our story. Absolutely no one. Only one memoirist!

That expressed, I just finished reading two powerfully phenomenal memoirs. Read my thoughts here and here.