I feel like the more I read, the more things that I can't write about because someone has already done it... and done a good job of it. There are so many good analogies or little tangents that I come across reading and think man, I wish I had come up with that or said that first. Of course these sorts of experiences can also help someone develop their style and come up with other illustrations as well. It's tricky though. Sometimes I feel like it's getting harder and harder to say something original.
I learned a new word today: "kitschy." I actually saw it on an article from the student webpage, too, so kudos to whoever wrote the bit about restaurants.
(In case you're wondering, kitsch-something of tawdry design, appearance, or content created to appeal to popular or undiscriminating taste. The sentence they give is this: “When money tries to buy beauty it tends to purchase a kind of courteous kitsch” (William H. Gass).
so there you have it.
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3 comments:
Rachel, I feel this way in my art classes too... all the good ideas have already been taken! But also I think sometimes that nothing can be completely removed from all of these references and existing works/thoughts everything ends up influencing what you write. If that makes any sense...
(Sarah D)
The crazy thing is, I actually read something recently in which an author is exasperated at exactly the same thing I am... that she can't write anything original because other people have already done it. I think it was Cynthia Ozick, and I really wish I could find that quote. She talked about reading things and thinking, "oh man, that was what I had been wanting to write." The thing is that she actually took some of the ideas and themes and made them her own and tried to one up the original author... which is kind of funny. So yeah... even that thought of mine wasn't original... Cynthia Ozick had already thought it. BUT recently I think I did have an original idea, or if it has already been taken, I don't know about it. Please see blog entry from 10/18 that does not in fact exist yet as I am typing this comment, but will hopefully exist shortly.
Then I read this in a book called Agape, Agape:
"No, no here he is again! Right there my words right there my idea he's there ahead o fme before I've even got it written down. He even writes about it this thinking another man's thoughts, put me in danger of deadening myself out of existence that' his phrase I simply haven't existed since I couldn't manage to think my own thoughts because my tihnking had actually been his thinking you see?" (Gaddis 20-21).
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