calculated insecurity

Fuck. The book I'm reading is the one I thought I was writing. No, really. The original short story concept that I was supposed to be turning into a novel is already a book. The basic premises of our stories is the same. I know it's a romance and there's nothing new under the sun, but some of it is kind of specific. It's freaky. Either I'm picking up brainwaves from other writers or I wasn't meant to write that story.

I'm so glad I decided to change the premise a bit before expanding it into a novel. Lord knows I could easily be accused of plagiarism, though I had the idea in May and didn't start reading this book until last week. It's not like I could prove I hadn't read the other book before writing mine. And now that I'm 75% of the way through it? I have so much more writing to do.

Not to make mine more like this one. Not story-wise. I feel like the story doesn't POP the way I want it to. What do I mean?

Picture this:

A peach, just big enough to cradle in your palm. The texture of the skin is soft, smooth, yielding at the slightest touch. It's so ripe the smell hits your nose before you can lift it close. It's sharp and pungent, inviting. The first bite allows juice to burst into your mouth, flooding it with sweetness as tender flesh tumbles over your questing tongue. Juice dribbles down your chin and over your hand, leaving a sticky trail.

Or this:

You're holding a relatively large peach. It smells sweet and ripe. It's soft. When you bite into it, it's juicy and falls apart in your hand.

See, here's my issue. That first paragraph is what all the description in my story should be like. The second paragraph is what most of it is currently like. Fine, because this is a first draft. But coming across a book that is strikingly similar to my original idea (or, my unoriginal, beginning premise before I changed it), but written so well I'm almost jealous and can barely put it down, makes me realize how much work I'm going to have to do to get my story to where I want it to be when I submit it. That's my little neurotic worry for today. And the rest of this month until I can finish this last chapter and get my baby into second draft overhaul mode.