The Amateur’s Dilemma

newtheoryoldlove:

     One of the many fears of writing is that someone else has already written it before, better, shorter, too long ago, too recently, with more poise and conviction and better syntax and always the right analogies placed in the right spots. 

     And most of that is inevitable. 

     There are no original stories, only original combinations of the same stories, with the same tired bits and pieces, like dirty rusted car parts being reassembled in new frames. Normally everyone lauds the idea, but the mechanic, of course, is looking at the whole mess, lucky to get by with something functional at all, just staring at these ruddy, overused pieces, slightly underwhelmed. Of course, some mechanics get away, eventually. The rest of us feel welded metals rotting in our mouths. 

     It can be a fascinating paranoia, of course. Hence the research. We look into the greatest writers of the past to learn their words without stealing them, learn their methods without suckling helplessly on them. We’re a little paranoid about it. If, at the end, one can find the balance between inspiration and the connecting of dots, a new work will flourish. 

     The other amateurs, well, we go to write but just can’t say a damn thing, even though we know full well it’s the only way to get better, so we peek over the hedges to glance at our neighbors’ scribbles. The words are awfully inspiring, yes, but now… no, now we feel dirty, to write about the same thing, or to use a similar tactic; we feel plagiarism and filth and shame, to do such a thing, we feel a lack of pride in ourselves, for not coming up with it on our own. It’s silly, really, since with that logic, we cannot win. We don’t even write. We just stall with our pens above the paper. 

     But all that feels like is cowardice.