Part 2 - The Screenwriting Panel - The ideas are out there, and anyone can access them.

There was another woman there sitting on the other screenwriting panel whom I'd met at other screenwriting functions. I asked her about her screenplay which she was working on last year. She said it had been produced and I was like WOW! I congratulated her, and then she said "No, I didn't sell my screenplay."

When I asked her what she meant she said that another movie had come out this year with her same title "Cowboy Up", and pretty much her plot. The movie starred Keifer Sutherland.

I was dumbfounded and expressed as much to her, and she said it happens all the time. You get an idea for a story, and then you see it published or made into a movie. She said, "the ideas are out there for anyone to make into a story and sometimes somebody else beats you to it."

My screenwriting colleague wasn't fazed. She was already at work on another screenplay, that she's planning to direct herself. One of her previous films was chosen for the Sundance Film Festival, and one of her documentaries was shown at the Orinda Film Festival and the Los Angeles Film Festival.

Trippy! But maybe not. That screenwriting teacher I took a seminar from a couple of months ago who sold his San Francisco 1906 earthquake screenplay, said that there were other earthquake screenplays in various stages of deals and development in Hollywood. Those other earthquake screenplays were all dropped by Hollywood in favour of his 1906 movie.

It's kind of cool to think that there might be some kind of creative stream that writers can all access, because this means that practically anyone has the chance to make it as a writer.

The downside to everyone having access to this creative stream, is you can work for months and months on your story only to see a similar story published or made into movie by someone else.