Recently on the ever-lovely Web Fiction Guide website, a discussion arose on whether it was wise to avoid reading other material similar to your work-in-progress, lest you subconsciously steal their ideas, and it's an interesting one. I'm sure I've seen the ever-blunt Warren Ellis post on one occasion that he was avoiding certain material as it was too close to something he was working on. This would be a better anecdote if I could remember any context at all.
But the point being: should we worry? After all, if it could happen to Ellis, it could easily happen to the rest of us.
