So you think you're an original, huh?

As a writer one thing you strive for is originality. It vital to develop new concepts, new situations, new insights different from anything that’s been written before. A friend once said we are all experts at something, in particular we are experts at being ourselves and that alone can lead to those creative insightful truths, That has never been enough. Over the years occasionally I have said or written something I was sure had never been said or written before. Example, I was staying with a friend and for some reason had liberated this huge kettle barbecue I owned from storage and put it on his deck. A volcano erupted somewhere south of us and eventually dusted the whole area including leaving a layer of that fine gray ash on my red barbecue. I remember looking out the window and telling my friend “I should probably go out there and clean the volcano dust off my barbecue.” At that moment I figured most likely no one else had ever said that.

Of other things that seemed original at the time, I have found, while I at least thought I came up with them on my own, it turns out someone else had the idea and sadly often expressed it better than I did. We are always encouraged to read other writers and learn from them. I think I wrote in a previous posting about Shakespeare. As I worked my way through that writer it seemed he had already said everything and what was left for us was only to put things in a modern context. Still, as the Eschatological Laundry List down the side column says, you are bound to keep trying anyway.

One of the terms I had thought was original was Green Day. I mean to my mind it is only a concept: Who actually believes everything turns green on the same day? Apparently EVERY SCIENTIST IN ALASKA. That fellow Ned Rozell who writes the science column I have mentioned before wrote about “Greening up” yesterday and pointed out that scientific observers had kept track of that single date for years. Well it turns out more like naturalists do, but the only thing that matters is I didn’t originate this idea. Here’s a quote from the column testifying to that fact.

“Ted Fathauer, who has recorded green-up at his home on Chena Ridge since 1986, ... declared May 17, as the day ‘leaf buds in birch and aspen open just enough to produce a faint, but distinct green flush through the forest canopy.’”

Here I recorded it as May 13, but that fits, in that we are about four days farther south than Fairbanks, even though it tends to get warmer there in the summer.

So, another expectation of originality shattered. First Shakespeare and now Ned Rozell. I don’t intend to read about barbecues or volcanoes anytime soon so I can at least cling to that one.

The full Rozell column is worth reading, so here it is.