Stardust the Movie the Book and The Sparrow Princess

Last Friday I found myself lounging in my favorite chair flipping through the channels on the television with nothing to watch that was of any interest to me whatsoever. The hour was late and a more sensible man would've given up and simply gone to bed. But not me. I decided instead to switch over to Amazon Prime and continue my search for entertainment well into the wee hours of Saturday morning. It turned out to be the right decision, because that is how I discovered Neil Gaiman and Stardust. The movie blurb touted an all star cast and the description drew me in immediately. Once I started watching I couldn't stop. It was nearly dawn when I finally fell asleep. I awoke around noon, grabbed my iPad and immediately downloaded the Ebook. 

I had never seen Stardust before or read anything written by Neil Gaiman. Although, I'm pretty sure I had heard of Coraline. I may have even seen part of it. But for some reason, I had always associated that work with Tim Burton. 

Anyway, as I read the book, I couldn't help noticing certain similarities between his tale and "The Sparrow Princess," a story I've been working on for a long time and have just recently published. At first I was alarmed to realize this, alarmed and intrigued at the same time. How could this be? Ironically enough, I think the explanation for that lies in Gaiman's speech on Writing and the Imagination included at the beginning of the book. His thoughts on composting were of particular interest to me in this regard. I think it's absolutely true that, as writers, the myths and legends and fairytales we've heard and read along the way, together with our own memories and life experiences are ultimately mixed to formulate the soil from which our own stories begin to grow. 

It occurred to me that the seeds planted in our minds as children (mine and Gaiman's) and the soil in which they had grown were probably nourished by the same type of organic matter and thereby produced similar results. 

This is not to say that my work is in any way equal to Gaiman's.The man possesses a skill with words that I can only hope to attain. But it does seem to me that at least for some time we had been drawing our creative water from the same well. 

My story, The Sparrow Princess, began as a conversation between my two year old granddaughter (who will soon be turning eight) and from there it became a tale told at bedtime. It has since developed into an exploration of family dynamics that takes place in a magical, fairytale setting. While I most certainly will be influenced by the myths and legends and fairytales I've heard and read in the past; It's within the family saga aspect of character and story development that I hope this will diverge from any similarities to anyone else's previous work. However, creating a unique storyline with no resemblance to anything that's been done before may prove to be an impossible task. Still I ntend to try.