Oh, hell.
I just finished reading Chuck Klosterman (this one) and my old nemesis has returned: I'm not writing like me I'm writing like the writer I just finished reading. I was all set to get to work on my next thing for readingground and I started writing Untitled Klosterman Essay 42 instead of Untitled Dave McGee Essay 6, Or Whatever Number I'm At But It's Low.
I fucking hate that. Gah.
This is why I stopped reading fiction for a while back there in Aught Five, because I am such a mental-flow-junkie that I just steal unabashedly. Or in this case, totally abashedly. I am fully, 100% abashed. Not sure what to do here, because apparently non-fiction is now verboten as well. Backs of cereal boxes and nothing else, forever?
Hmm. OK.
Step 1: Read David Mitchell. Can't copy him because he's a chameleon. Brilliant.
Step 2: ?
Step 3: This joke is probably overused.
I fucking hate that. Gah.
This is why I stopped reading fiction for a while back there in Aught Five, because I am such a mental-flow-junkie that I just steal unabashedly. Or in this case, totally abashedly. I am fully, 100% abashed. Not sure what to do here, because apparently non-fiction is now verboten as well. Backs of cereal boxes and nothing else, forever?
Hmm. OK.
Step 1: Read David Mitchell. Can't copy him because he's a chameleon. Brilliant.
Step 2: ?
Step 3: This joke is probably overused.
posted by Dave @ 1/02/2008 10:49:00 PM
2 Comments:
At 1:19 AM,
Becca said…
So, realizing this is weeks after your post and you've probably moved on anyway, I'm still going to offer you an alternative solution:
Go ahead and steal. Revel in that style. Exploit it for all it's worth. And then, after a few essays, you'll get tired of it. You'll start to sound like you again. Except a you with perhaps a few new adopted/adapted ways of saying what's kicking around in your head.
Now I know this is anathema to the Dave McGee M.O. of just sitting down one day and typing out finished works, but give it a shot. How do you think Mitchell most likely ended up the chameleon that he is anyway?
Also, that Black Swan Green is a damned good read.
At 6:40 PM,
Andy said…
i feel your pain.
i go back and read my journal from around Christmastime and it reads like bukowski. i read my journal from later in january and it reads like adjective-humping tony bourdain... as much as i admire the man, i'd prefer to have higher standards.
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