Collective Mind?
Do you ever wonder if humanity has a collective mind or subconscious? I know Karl Jung thought of it first, but sometimes I really think he was on to something. I read a lot of books. I mean, a LOT. I try not to read books in the same genre that I'm writing at the time because I don't want to take any chances that something I read might influence me even unconsciously.
When I'm done writing the book whether it's romantic suspense, science fiction, or fantasy, I usually devour books that I've been denying myself in that genre.
And the scary thing is, on more than one occasion I've noticed that a thought or theme or name or experience that I've just written about pops up in several different books that I've read. EEEKKK!!! I'm terrified one of these days that someone is going to think I ripped them off when I was just tapped into the same part of the collective brain.
Case in point. A few years ago I used to spend a lot of time on the eHarlequin message boards. There was a woman there who I became friendly with named Marley. I asked her if I could use her name for one of my characters. She said sure so I wrote A MAN FOR MARLEY. This was back in 2004. Now, there are Marleys everywhere you look! Craziness, I tell you!
So, if anyone who has read one of my books and thinks I stole from them, I swear I haven't, ahahahah
Okay, my computer is on the fritz and I can barely see the screen any more so I'm goint to end this now. Have a great weekend everyone!
Ari
When I'm done writing the book whether it's romantic suspense, science fiction, or fantasy, I usually devour books that I've been denying myself in that genre.
And the scary thing is, on more than one occasion I've noticed that a thought or theme or name or experience that I've just written about pops up in several different books that I've read. EEEKKK!!! I'm terrified one of these days that someone is going to think I ripped them off when I was just tapped into the same part of the collective brain.
Case in point. A few years ago I used to spend a lot of time on the eHarlequin message boards. There was a woman there who I became friendly with named Marley. I asked her if I could use her name for one of my characters. She said sure so I wrote A MAN FOR MARLEY. This was back in 2004. Now, there are Marleys everywhere you look! Craziness, I tell you!
So, if anyone who has read one of my books and thinks I stole from them, I swear I haven't, ahahahah
Okay, my computer is on the fritz and I can barely see the screen any more so I'm goint to end this now. Have a great weekend everyone!
Ari
posted by Arianna Hart @ 8:16 AM
1 Comments:
At 10:30 AM,
Mary Stella said…
Arianna, if we don't share a common consciousness, we DO share a common experience. The rapid dissemination of information, news, events, etc. via the media and the Internet means that, to great extent, we are all exposed to the same outside influences. Those influences may naturally trigger the same ideas and inspirations for our work. Mary Jo Putney explained this much more eloquently a few years ago in an article in the RWR, but I think I've hit the gist.
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