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June 19, 2006
I Gotta Be Me
I am re-reading Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking, by David Bayles and Ted Orland (Image Continuum Press). What? You do not have this book in your writer's arsenal yet? Make haste to your nearest local, independent bookstore and purchase one posthaste. My copy is to the point where but a few lines per page are not highlighted.
Here is the gem I am turning over in my mind this evening: "In large measure becoming an artist consists of learning to accept yourself, which makes your work personal, and in following your own voice, which makes your work distinctive."
In other words: Kirby, quite whining because you didn't write Because of Winn-Dixie or Belle Prater's Boy or Feed. Get thee to the keyboard and write the story that Kate Di Camillo and Ruth White and M.T. Anderson will wish they could've written. But they can't. Because they're not Kirby Larson, maybe the only girl in history to flunk boys' P.E. in 8th grade.
Here's the deal. No one else can write our stories. And we can't write anyone else's stories. So is there any sense in fussing and moaning over another writer's success? I'll bet you can answer that all for yourself. As my mother would say, "flour'em." Loosely translated, that means: stick your bum in the chair and write the story only you can write. So what if there are a hundred other pioneer stories? No one can write the one you have in mind. Dozens of coming-of-age-girls-who-play-football tales? Maybe yours will be the next Dairy Queen. There are already hundreds of picture books with pig characters? Maybe yours will capture the world the way Olivia has.
So today's tip: glue yourself to your work chair, or face the risk of depriving the world of that brilliant story only you can write.
Posted by kirby at June 19, 2006 09:10 PM
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