When association blocks your creativity

I'm writing a short story.

I try to push myself to enter at least one contest every three months to a) have a solid goal other than land a best selling novel b) to force my butt to write without the excuse of "being stuck" and c) I like to stretch my imagination.

So, to start off the year I've decided to enter into a serious Sci-Fi contest that focuses on science-realism. I read the contest guidelines and immediately I was hit with inspiration. I wrote 1,000 words instantly in my allotted time to write. I was so excited that I went home and told my husband the plot.

Now I love my husband, dearly, but he isn't a reader/writer. He doesn't even really like movies except for the occasional documentary. Sure, I can talk him into watching just about anything but usually when it is Sci-Fi he falls asleep within 15 minutes. This being something I know intimately about him, I really don't know what I was expecting.

But I pushed forward. I talked about how it was a drama about an A.I. robot that was sent on a mission and ended up becoming emotionally human and then gets left behind. It's going to be 8,000 words of pure genious! I exclaimed.

He then said, and I quote, "Oh. Like Wall-E

No. Not at all like Wall-e...

I was took back. Baffled. What?

I tried to explain how it wasn't like Wall-E, but he didn't see the differences (HOW THE HELL CAN YOU NOT SEE THE DIFFERENCES, THEY'RE NOT THE SAME PLOT)! But in his mind, robot=Wall-E.

Now, I forgive him, I really do. I understand it. But when I go to write my story my brain is frozen on if I'm flipping writing a Disney movie for a serious Sci-Fi contest and I lose all my allotted daily writing time to being frozen by this idea.

Has this ever happened to any of you, where you've been compared and now you're terrified to write it because you don't want to be compared to it? How did you push through it? Did you end up scraping the whole thing?

I really want to write this story! But since this conversation I now feel like a fraud!

Help!

WriterMistakenForADisneyMovie