Taylor Antrim's nightmare

Periodically I post about authors' fears that someone else is writing something similar to what they are writing. This past week, the New York Observer published a story called "Wonder Boy '07" about 33-year-old author Taylor Antrim, whose debut novel about a prep school is coming out. It says that as Antrim was writing it, halfway through it, young author Curits Sittenfeld's novel Prep came out, also about a prep school. Antrim could have thinking: "Ack! A best seller about prep school! No one will buy mine because Prep is already out." Editors could turn it down: "Sorry, we just bought Prep" or "It's too much like "Prep" (which incidentally was itself rejected by 14 out of 15 editors and then went on to be a best seller.) This kind of thing does happen sometimes.

Anyway, this is an excerpt from the article:

MR. ANTRIM WORKED ON THE NOVEL for almost two years, getting over 150 pages written on the Metro-North to New Haven visiting his girlfriend—now fiancée—Liz, who is completing her dissertation at Yale. “It’s an amazing place to write as long as you can block out the fact that people are looking over your shoulder and seeing what you’re writing,” he said. Midway through his work, Prep came out. “I didn’t read it, but I heard about it and thought to myself, ‘Just keep your head down and keep writing and get to the end.’ Because you really don’t believe you’ll get to the end. And then when you get there you stand up and say, ‘Holy shit, I wrote a novel!’”

So it just goes to show, if you love what you are writing, you just have to keep at it.

Here's the rest of the story, if you are interested.
http://www.observer.com/2007/wonder-boy-07?page=0%2C1

By the way, the Observer called him a "wonder boy" and now all other young writers will be jealous of him. Plus they started their article talking about how handsome he is. And yes, he went to prep school. So, let the snark begin.

Or, you may be focusing on the NBA draft right now like certain people. ;)