We've been told every person has a novel in them but most of us do not have the time/talent/motivation to get it out. I guess I consider I'm one of those people.

Despite this I've created over the years a pretty complex world influenced by various stuff in the world and in things I have read. I don't have the chops to put this into one major work but over the last few years at work I would write short stories all sharing this same fictional world of mine. I thought of this as a fun alternative to wasting my time on DiS or Facebook as I'm writing in a text editor so it looks like I'm doing work.

Anyway I met up with a friend who last time I met was the biggest philistine I knew. But he met a woman who works in Hollywood and overnight they have become brokers in developing scripts and selling them to studios.

So over dinner when I got chatting to his new lady and we chatted about our interests and we got to love of sci-fi fiction and stuff ands she talked about some of her plays that got commissioned a few years back and how she now works in script development. I just mentioned my fictional world and my stories as a conversational point but this girl got really excited about it and decided she would develop it into a script and sell it.

I just laughed it off. But Now I'm getting messages from my old friend telling me to start working with them.

I told them this is just a fun thing I do at work and I don't have time to work on a pipedream.

After hearing this he said fine but he has the idea now anyway he and his partner will just find someone else to do it.

He also said that he emailed himself my idea and recorded my conversation half way through so he can prove it is his idea.

Even though I have time stamped text files of my stories the 'universe' and back-story is not explicit in any of them...he has it though in a paragraph in an email to himself.

I dismissed this at first because even though he has the idea he doesn't know how to develop the story but then he emailed me telling me his gf bought all these history books that I am influenced by and basically: they got it. Well she understood exactly what my story is about and I think they are capable of doing it.

I don’t have the ability or the contact to get to the finish line first, but I don’t like the idea of people taking something so personal and giving me the option to ‘ride along’ or they will find someone else.

Can they actually do this? An idea is just an idea isn’t it?

Also I think all they are going to do is sell the treatment .

I can easily write down a spec treatment for my idea but in the UK who the fuck do you go to?

Or should I just put this down to the fact if you do fuck all with your life others that are motivated enough can always do things like this and get away with it?