Throughout this blogging challenge I’ve been concerned about posting on the same theme multiple times. I’ve been told that I only seem to post about my challenges and how I plan to overcome them. Am I writing the same thing over and over? Perhaps, but this quote from Austin Kleon, in Steal Like an Artist, gives me a different perspective: “What a good artist understands is that nothing comes from nowhere. All creative work builds on what came before. Nothing is completely original.”
I am undergoing the process of becoming an artist, not in the sense that I’ll be painting or sculpting, but in that I’m looking to improve myself through creative expression.
What is the best way to get better at something? Through repetition. I’m recreating my work in slightly different forms to gain an understanding of what potential is held in that style. Where can I improve, and when will I reach the end of its usefulness?
When asked what I want this blog to be, I don’t have an answer. Do I have to right now? I’m still in the process of self-discovery and haven’t decided yet.
I have used it for introspective posts and personal growth. It’s also been a home for my passions: golf, reading, and event planning and played host to my attempts at fiction: where I can get lost in the story and draw from real life experiences. I still don’t know where it’s headed, but I’ll let the muses decide that.
“What is originality? Undetected plagiarism.” —William Ralph Inge
No, my work isn’t original. It doesn’t have to be. I learn best through mimicry, taking what others do well and putting my own spin on it. That’s the essence of competition, and humanity, in my opinion. Trying to one-up the other guy. Take his ideas and do it better, faster, cheaper, so that you’re the one who comes out ahead.
That’s exactly what I’m trying to do with my writings, one-up myself from the last time. Keep improving at this skill until I can achieve a level of mastery in it.
I’m using tools that others have created to give myself a starting point. I’m not looking to change the world with a bolt of inspiration that comes from the heavens, although if it turns out that I do, it’ll be because I went through this to be ready.
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