Inspiration... you fleeting, fickle muse.

After struggling with my writing last night, I went to the oldest writer's trick in the book.  I gave myself the worst case of indigestion I could muster via multiple whiskey sours and pepperoni pizza, then popped an Ambien and let dreams take me to my muse.

Woke up in a cold sweat, my bedroom reeking of a flatulence most unholy, but with an idea in my head.  I took twenty minutes to jot down the basics and flesh it out a bit, then returned to sleep the happiest I'd felt in a long while.

Then I wake up to find that someone already had the same idea:

Dammit, dammit dammit!  Sure there were some differences, like mine didn't take place in Kentucky.  It took place on the outer rings of the Zargos empire in the Quadra System of Contested Space, but the similarities are so uncanny that I'm forced to push this idea to the scrap pile.  I've had my heart broken more in the few weeks since I've decided to become a writer than in the entirety of my 40 plus years here on Earth.

I guess tonight's indigestion will have to come from some mashup of cheap tequila and those tacos served inside another taco.  Wish me luck.