Holidailies 2008 - A Beginning
Well, I missed out on the National Novel Writing Month, so I thought I'd give this a try. Writing once a day shouldn't be that hard. Used to do it all the time. We'll see what we shall see.
Does removing yourself from other people's creativity make you any more or any less productive, or innovative? Personally, I don't like to read while I'm writing, of course, it becomes a challenge to turn pages while your fingers are tied up clicking away on the keys, but that's not really what I mean.
When I'm reading a good novel, or even a not so good one, my own writing style tends to start emulating that which I'm reading. If I'm reading fantasy, my literary voice strays further from my own, and tends to sound like someone doing a horrible Tolkein impression. This is a personality trait that has been with my most of my life, and honestly, I think more people are like this than like to admit it. I recall a day I spent at a semi-local amusment park with a German exchange student my Junior year of high school. I was taking German at the time, and for some reason the teacher thought it would be a good idea. By the end of the day, I found myself speaking English with a perfect German accent (or at least a German speaker trying to emmulate a southern American accent).
I do things like this subconsciously, all the time. I used to think that I was a linguistic chameleon. However, this would involve being fluent in more languages than I am, and an unhealthy obsession with crickets.
Another way to put it involves another, hopefully not as poor, analogy. I seem to remember reading somewhere that when Eddie Van Halen was learning to play guitar, he didn't take lessons. He didn't listen to the music he liked. He didn't allow himself to become 'tainted' by the way things were always done. He didn't know that you weren't supposed to tap the strings frimly onto the fretboard to create music. Since he didn't know it wasn't done this way, he had no problem creating something new.
While I'm not setting out to complete something new, different, earth-shattering, or even mind blowing. I am setting out to try to find my own literary voice. Something that I feel I've not found yet at all. I've come close a few times. In high school writing about anthropomorphic furry pets that were trying to solve mysteries. I still find rereading those brief snippets can bring a smile to my face. Even though I was clearly creating a mishmash of Douglas Adams, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles/Preteen Dirty Gene Kung-Fu Kangaroos/Hamster Vice, etc., I felt that I was good at this.
Also since my sophomore year in high school, I've been creating a world all my own. A place called Nakiel. I knew when creating this new world that I was stealing ideas left and right from various sources. World creation myths, Russian folklore, and my own thoughts of a tree that was the size of Texas that people lived inside of (come to think of it, that probably came from Pirates of Dark Water, oh well). I do recall trying to steer clear of regular fantasy trappings.
Even that was for naught. I had developed something entirely new (at least to me), and when I started telling friends about it, I was informed that I was ripping off the works of Robert Jordan. Excuse me, who? I had never read any of the late Mr. Jordan's works, but when they set about to tell me what they knew of his works... I was stunned. It was almost like he had read my mind and stolen my ideas. Yes, of course this is absurd, but at that age, absurdity is the norm.
So when writing, when painting, when drawing, when plucking any stringed instrument, when doing anything of a creative nature, do you shun creative contact, or do you intentionally surround yourself with items of a nature that you're trying to create? Do you find this method helps or hinders you?
I've had more than enough time to have written a novel by now. No annoying job to get in the way, just steadily increasing pain, and use of mind numbing narcotics to try to relieve the pain, but dull the senses.
I've had more than enough time to retrain myself how to draw. Heck, I should even have my own style down by now.
This has not been the case. Hopefully, Holidailies will help kick start something. Anything. So for now, no more serious reading, including books on 'how to write a damn good novel'. I'm not claiming to be a Van Halen, or a King, or Jordan. I just want to be myself, and let that define my writing.
Maybe after this I won't feel so embarrassed when I'm asked what I do, shuffle my feet, stare at the ground, and claim to be a writer. Something that I've claimed since I was ten. Maybe it's time to start pulling my own weight in the matter.
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