Nothing New Under the Sun

A while back I commented on a play that we saw that was about cloning. You can find that entry here. Anyway, I said wouldn't it be cool to do a movie where there are a bunch of clones and the original finds them and kills them all so he can be the only one. Well, I listened to a short story the other day that had a plot that wasn't exactly that but still similar. The story is Job Qualifications by Kevin J. Anderson. You can find the audio version at Escape Pod. The synopsis is below. Don't read it if you want to listen to the story for yourself.
In it, a politician is cloned. The clones are sent out to live their lives and then, at a certain time, they are brought back in and killed so that the politician can absorb their life knowledge.
Just goes to show, there's nothing new under the sun. Try to come up with a story and it's already been done in one way, shape or form. The same goes for just about everything. But I tend to look at things a bit differently. I think it was photographer Duane Michaels that said something like this, "Everything's been done. But it hasn't been done by you." I like that. It frees me up. So what if Jasper Johns did paintings with stencils in them...I can do it too. So what if there's another killer clone story out there...I can still write my own. Heck, I can't tell you how many of my ideas I've seen in books, TV or in the movies. We're all having these ideas simultaneously. The one who gets it out first wins.
Never mind all that. Don't think. Just create.