Online Writing Classes

Over at Women of Mystery (see my blogroll in the sidebar) Elaine Sparber posted last Thursday about the opportunity for would-be authors to take online writing classes.

http://www.womenofmystery.net/2009/08/back-to-online-school.html

What a great idea! It's a wonderful opportunity for anyone who has ever thought "I wonder if I could write a book..." to find out!

But here's the kicker for me. Just a few days ago I posted a blog entry entitled 'Cozy Is as Cozy Does'. Original, right? Not so much! Turns out one of the workshops mentioned in the linked blog has the very same title, and I swear I didn't read it there first!

This reminds me of a true and very personal story: I wrote a novel several years ago called 'A Trail of Keys', which featured an old guy worried about murder and a trail of keys that leads the protagonist, a freelance writer, on a wild goose chase to some supposed treasure. And then after I was done and was just about ready to submit it to every house I could think of - I didn't have an agent in those days - I picked up a Sue Grafton novel (L is for Lawless, I think) and what do I come up against? Kinsey Millhone with a couple of elderly fellows following a trail of keys on some wild goose chase.

Well. What was I to do with the mansucript now? Anyone I sent it to was going to think I was cribbing from the Sue Grafton playbook.

Damn.

And yet I hadn't even seen a description for L is for Lawless before, during, or after I wrote A Trail of Keys.

I'm just sayin'... sometimes coincidence is a bitch called 'it ain't never gonna get published'.