Coincidence

How's this for a coincidence. I live in a remote area of Eastern Oregon, nearest town a population of 15,000 15 miles away. Randomly e-mailed a volunteer editor - turns out that's where she lives. Calculated odds of that happening - 1 in 90,000, approx

Scary, if you wanted remain anonymous. I've had something similar happen recently--a couple of times. One of my stories using a very small town near my extended family's ranch resulted in a query on from someone who lives in that town and thought (possible correctly) that she could identify the ranch setting--and thus the family who has owned the ranch since the 1920s. The area's small enough for IDs then to unravel. And more recently I inadvertently used a real name for a character in a career position in a specific story setting--in place and time--and damned if a reader didn't work her way back from there and identify who I was--by who might have been in that place and time and written such a story.

Depending on the Oregon town you mean, I might even be connected to your duo in some way.

Things like this go back to the adage "You shouldn't shit where you eat"

Not that I am one to talk featuring a lot of my stories in RI, but I don't use my name or names of anyone I know, just locations.

Sort of my tribute to HPL who based a lot of his work in Providence.

robertl said:

How's this for a coincidence. I live in a remote area of Eastern Oregon, nearest town a population of 15,000 15 miles away. Randomly e-mailed a volunteer editor - turns out that's where she lives. Calculated odds of that happening - 1 in 90,000, approx

Click to expand...

How's this for coincidence? A writer contacted me to edit his story on literotica. I operate on Lit. only by my nom de plume. in the first paragraph of the story, the main character's name is the same as mine! and i don't mean John Jones either!