Nothing is Original (A Letter to J.K. Rowling)

The last post was way too Livejournal. I got too personal, no one wants that. This is going to be my attempt to make up for that, and simultaneously make it seem like these two entries were companion pieces all along.

That last bit was very autobiographical, which would be cool if I was important or if someone gave a shit. I had a point to it though. I was trying to show how everything sort of came together for me as an aspiring writer. Almost like I'm writing my own author bio on the back of the imaginary paperback novel I have published (in my head).

I mentioned Jhonen Vasquez as a major influence on me. While he wasn't the only person who has shaped myself or my writing, he was definitely the one person I always vividly remember. There are more too. Throughout the years dozens of artists, musicians, authors, and whoever have come into my life and influenced me in a way that I've put into my own works that in turn, influence nobody.


That's just the way it works. Nobody can claim that their artistic expression is 100% their own creation. If they do, they're lying fucks and I'll be the first person to tell them that. An example here would be J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter novels, which, as time progresses, I'm starting to hate more and more. She names Stephen King as a primary influence on her writing. One of King's biggest influences was William Faulkner, who was influenced by Dostoyevsky. Dostoyevsky was a fan of Dickens, who himself was influenced by Victor Hugo. Hugo's writings contain allegories to the philosophical work of the French political and religious visionary Voltaire. Voltaire's writings (which I'll get around to reading one day) were heavily influenced by Isaac Newton.

I just took you through a time warp there. In a way Rowling's work has influences that go all the way back to the guy who discovered the concept of gravity. The modern day celebrated by thousands as the literary equivalent to Jesus author hasn't really published anything original. Not many of us do, rather, we expand upon the ideas we've absorbed from our experiences and mix them together with other ideas and influences and create Frankenfucks of art we pawn off as our own legit original work. It's a fluxing give-and-take as we paint other people's ideas onto our own canvas to update the concepts for a new audience. That audience absorbs the work, and then uses it for their own artistic purposes, silently (and maybe unknowingly) passing new combinations of thoughts to the next generation. That's why you watch any love story and it has some connection to Romeo and Juliet, we usually call them clichés. There's only so many original stories to be told. Most authors just update them. It's a subconscious system that has been in place forever. That's the whole idea of art. I have no complaints about the system, more the people who think they're not a part of it, or in J.K. Rowling's case, the fans that think it doesn't apply to her.



I'm stopping here. I'm afraid if I don't this will turn into a long drawn out rant about how much I hate the Harry Potter franchise, which will piss off a decent amount of you and you'll stop reading. I don't want that.




I'm more than sure writing about how no one, including myself, writes original work will surely get me a book deal. Here's to hoping Random House has a spot for me on the Del Ray roster.