The other day I found myself reading a New York Times article via the imdb site. It was about actor Adam Brody, with the focus being his upcoming movie, In The Land of Women. I don't really know a lot about the guy. Just that he played a geek-type character on The O.C. (a show I saw about two episodes of by virtue of everyone I knew in Sydney seemed to watch it).
I found I rather liked Brody based on some of his quotes in the article. At one point, he describes himself as a "fake intellectual" - referring to the misconception most people have of him based on his characters in television. He admits he's not particularly well-read and is at times uncomfortable with people thinking that he is. I've got to respect the guy for his honesty. Plus, his acting ability is obviously pretty good if his geek character in Orange County was deemed cool enough for him to have a hot girlfriend on the show - this seeming believeable to the audience, I suppose. Now, certain scripts define certain characters as an "Adam Brody type" - that is, a somewhat low-key, loveable loser type who's actually pretty cool while still being true to his geeky roots. Quietly going about his business and getting the girl. It seems he's playing a very similar character in the movie and once more, he gets the girl(s).
It was probably inevitable that an actor would make geek culture hip and mainstream at some point but props to Brody for allegedly being the first. (he's the new Zach Braff!)
The other quote of his that really struck me went something like "I'm not really that creative (original?) I just know how to take things that I like and repackage them in a slightly different way." This struck me because maybe that's what I'm like. I want to write. I write. But so far, have I come up with anything particularly original? Not yet. My current effort is basically me standing on the shoulders of giants, my personal heroes, and trying to build on what they've shown me without completely ripping them off.
Really talented people sometimes get me upset as I don't think of myself as overly talented anyway and I've got a boatload of confidence issues besides. One of the main things that upsets me about talented people is they usually are good at more than one thing. I find myself thinking this is unfair even if the things are related. Case in point, I'm jealous of say, Ben Folds (whom I adore more than I could ever really be jealous of) because not only is he a phenomenal pianist, but he's also amazing at song writing, arranging AND the guy can sing really well. It all just seems to click with that guy. Which, don't get me wrong, is a great thing. I always wish I was better at piano. But if I was, I still couldn't write decent songs. But oh well. I'm musical, sure, (hell, ive even got an Outstanding Musician Award) but it's not really my arena.
So take any number of great writers I look up to. They all have the ability to come up with great ideas for stories and then tell the stories in really great fashion. Here's where I feel wanting - I think I really have the ability to write well. To write convincingly, to create mood, to present realistic and interesting characters, to set up action, suspense, etc. I'm still learning but I'm getting better all the time. I really do believe that. But here's the thing - the idea. Oh, the idea! So far, I'm not so hot at that. I want to write for Marvel someday. But why? Do I want to create new characters for them? Not really. I want to take characters invented by others before me and tell stories with them. I want to weave tales involving Spider Man, the X-Men and Moon Knight. And I think I could do it too. But could I really show everyone something they haven't seen before? I don't know. But I want to.
So maybe I won't be too hard on myself as I write V World, which, admittedly, is not an overly original novel. I'll write and create and weave and try to be original and different, but at the same time I won't put a ton of pressure on myself to reinvent the wheel. There's still time for my idea making chops to improve, after all.
For now, I'll try to take a page out of Adam Brody's book (I wasn't going for any sort of pun here but here we are) and just try to be happy with who I am and where it's got me so far, creatively speaking. If I focus on my strengths, the rest will come in time. Here's hoping anyway.
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