Monday, March 21, 2011

The Art of Zeitgeist

Just imagine it: you’ve spent weeks playing around with ideas for a book and then, suddenly, the neurons click and these pieces of inspiration finally have the chance to slot together and fall into place. So, you begin to expand your plot – a narrative centred, say, on anthropomorphic creatures of the countryside: a mole, a water rat, a badger and a toad. And then you find out about Kenneth Grahame …
My writing life has been haunted by my ability to soak up the Zeitgeist without being consciously aware of it. I spent the last couple of months mulling over concepts about reality and thought I’d found a new spin on it. I won’t tell you who the author is that got there ahead of me – suffice to say it’s one I admire and the novel was one of only a few I hadn’t read of his. I know friends tell me that there’s nothing really new – only different interpretations – and that I’ll impose my style and voice on the narrative, but it really is bloody annoying to discover someone has already used your main ideas, together with subplots and themes.
Still, I’m a pretty dab hand with smoke and mirrors and I’m convinced I’ll uncover an even better story in there amongst the ideas. It’s just a shame I can’t enhance this innate ability to predict the lottery …

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