Ideas with Nowhere to Go

Once in a while, I get very excited about an idea only to find out that it has been done before. This has happened enough times that I've taken to doing quick Google searches to see if I'd be breaking new ground or not. Usually, my brilliant ideas (and just as often my stupid ones) have already been capitalized on, by somebody else. It's the more personal ideas that always seem to go somewhere, and ultimately give me more pleasure.

However, just to see how brilliant I could have been if I was first (or how laughable), here is a smattering of my pre-empted projects:

1) The New Testament, Zombie Version: Yes, I know, sacreligious, and I'm sorry about that, but the "resurrection" of Jesus lends itself to zombification. C'mon, what would be better at Easter than to see Jesus and the twelve apostles eating their way through the brains of the Roman legion? Actually, this was such an obvious treatment that a Google search showed me that it had been considered and done...by MANY.

2) Shakespeare as Porn: I have a version of Othello I'm considering putting to pen that actually IS an original concept, and in thinking about that, and particularly the line about "the beast with two backs," I thought, "Wow, what a great concept. People would surely buy Shakespeare in dirty movie form." I thought this despite the fact that I myself could care less about seeing Shakespeare in porn form (I like it just fine as it is), and the other fact that I would be embarrassed to be the progenitor of such pretentious trash while also being the father to a little girl. What drew me to the idea was the thought that it might actually draw in money. "Not to be," as Hamlet might have said, and if you doubt me, see this: http://www.radosh.net/writing/shakespeare.html

3) The Benjamin Franklin Lifestyle: I rarely get excited about non-fiction, but I love good old Ben Franklin. I love him so much, in fact, that I considered using his guide for living from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin as the base for an experiment. I would test myself by following Franklin's thirteen virtues to the letter (Temperance, Silence, Order, etc) and then writing honestly how well I held up. This actually WAS an original idea at first--no other person had taken on this reality-show-like task--but within three months of my starting my experiment, Ben and Me by Canadian lawyer Cameron Gunn was announced and my project ended. This was probably for the best because when I subsequently picked up Ben and Me, I couldnt' actually get into it.

Ultimately, I guess my "brilliant" and "original" ideas are exciting to me not because I actually think they would be fun to write about (or read about), but because I see money coming from them. In these three cases, I don't think the people who actually utilized the ideas actually made much of a profit. Thus, rather than following the money, I'd better just keep writing the stuff that I find personally fulfilling, which in the end is probably more original, and also, I hope, more interesting for readers.