Gene Wolfe once told me, "Good writers borrow, great writers steal." Well, I wonder about writers who think they're stealing, but are really basing their material on false memories... Like me. I'm currently working on "The Libyrinth," a YA about a gigantic library and a young woman who hears the voices of the books talking to her. For years I thought this story was based upon a scene from the 1970 Barbra Striesand film "On a Clear Day You Can See Forever."
No, really. I saw this film when I was six and one particular scene stuck with me for all these years. Or so I thought. In case you don't know, "On a Clear Day..." is about a young woman (Barbra) who experiences past-life regression under hypnosis. It's a love story... and a musical... Anyway, one of these past lives is that of a girl who is adopted by a mean lady in a big stone castle, and she has to scrub the steps and stuff like that. At one point the little girl walks past all these cobwebby shelves with books on them, and the books are talking to her, and I was fascinated by this, and I never forgot it.
Except that I couldn't have not forgotten something that I never remembered. Uh. Let me try that again. I saw "On a Clear Day..." again recently, and the scene with the books does not exist. I must have been bored in the theatre and made it up. I wonder if I would have held on to it for so long if I had known it was just the daydream of a bored six-year-old. Would I be writing this book now if I hadn't been egged on by the illicit thrill of stealing from Barbra Striesand and Vincent Minelli? Who can say. These are mysteries even past-life regression and a Broadway dance number can't answer.
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