May 17, 2011

I envy creativity like one craves money. The ability to draw, play, write or mold imagination into art has always been a goal, if not very elusive. The closest I've ever gotten have been choreographing; for myself, my jazz students and last year, my lacrosse team. Instead of creating original works, I plagiarize; copying people's music tastes, author's quotes, master's dances, and mimicking literature style. The works I have read, therefore have undoubtedly impacted my own ventures in creative writing. I have always kept journals of story ideas, looseleaf pages with scribbles of first sentences, character development, and interesting snippets for plot. My ideas have ranged from sinister murder plots in a fictional hillbilly town, to affluent pre-teen girls with attitudes. Obviously enough, these attempts are embarrassing to read years later.

There has really been no change in my methods. Read, think, apply, write, repeat. Witty quips, memorable sayings, and significant theories have not been my forte. Instead, I try to twist and stretch my life into interesting plots, mold my friends and acquaintances into unique characters, and grab pieces of dialogue from the already too noisy world. Reading Margaret Atwood's "Happy Endings," I have found both resolve and resentment.

Characters : John, Mary. Place: Canada Plot: changing, but all around Love. No dialogue. But Atwood has written an incredible short story, driving her advice to hopeful writers home. She brags to me "True connoisseurs, however, are known to favor the stretch in between, since it's the hardest to do anything with." Obviously, I am no connoisseur, comparable rather a underage kid stealing their parent's wine. I've seen gifted author's work, I've read their masterpieces, I've copied their quotes, and still the true flavor of literary control has neglected to show. My writing sucks. Even Atwood's boring happy ending, choice "A" is written with a degree of control and style higher than mine. She explains herself; "The only authentic ending is the one provided here: John and Mary die."

So maybe, that's my biggest problem. I don't know the truth. I shield myself from reality with this plagiarized creativity, piggybacking off of other's grand realizations, and profound thoughts. My literary achievement has come across a stalemate; my creative writing has not truly advanced itself since the days I was simply copying other's style. I hope that I can actually take Atwood's advice to "Now try How and Why," and write without "excessive optimism," to not be fake. I hope to achieve true creativity, to be able to master a true art form with my imagination, even if temporarily. Reading literature, I predict will not ever hinder this creativity; how could it? I suspect that I will never be the writer I wished I could be, I will not be the next Margaret Atwood. For now, acknowledging artist's brilliance will be good enough.