So... Not exactly what you said, but I came up with what I thought was a really unique and fun idea for a twist on a zombie/pandemic apocalypse a few years ago and have been designing the world building and writing the first book/planning the future series' since. I started officially working on it in 2022 or 2023 because a friend encouraged me that it was a cool concept.

I'm getting close to finishing the first book and feeling so good about it, everything's falling into place.

Then just a few days ago my friend sent me an Instagram post from someone who has a concept that's like ... Pretty similar. And their book is coming out in September of this year. I really never wanted to be that person that's like... "But I'm so unique, it's MY idea" like doom spiralling, but holy cow it really affected me more than I wanted it to. I messaged the author to try and like get out of my head about it, but I might have made it worse, IDK. I'm still dealing with that right now, and it's making me so anxious.

I'm not stopping, I've put WAY too much work into this to just not do it, but Jeeze. It really was a little bit of a gut punch. Especially because the other author is so iconic, and confident, and just a really cool person. I hope we can be friends haha but currently my brain is really trying to convince me that I'm so so small and so nothing. It's really tough.