Shouts From Down Under

Pausing, sinking, drowning, dying in fashionable sameness...

All you Canadians are just Americans, right? And Koreans are all the same blokes whether North or South, and as for Australia and New Zealand- same crowd different islands.

That's all.

Oh, really? Is that a fact, now? You don't say?

Of course that's rubbish. Different countries, completely different people. Even the same countries, the same region can have many different people, dialects, customs, traditions, beliefs, strengths, weaknesses, benefits and disadvantages.

http://www.tickld.com/x/33-things-americans-should-know-about-canada-seriously

Everywhere you look there are help groups for this genre, discussions for that subject, courses for this, advice for that, how to books for one thing, opinions and blogs for something else. There are websites, webinars, twitter sessions, Facebook posts, write-ins, NaNoWriMo get togethers, and it goes on and on. We can't complain about lack of helpful boosts with writing and learning this craft, with an avalanche of information only a nod or mouse click away.

But I was thinking yesterday about this, and while it is all great and comforting, well meaning and I suppose correct in most cases, what if there was a down side festering among this coaching and tutoring? What if there was too much focus on everyone conforming to the same stuff?

Destination Non-specific...by Colin Mutchler



What if we all gasped for the air of individual creative voice, stretched out our bony keyboard worn fingers towards the ledge of validity, we depended on the pitons of conformity, the abseiling ropes of peer approval, and became authors of cloned literature?

Would we be satisfied churning out molded and finished stories, poems and other works of literature like a row of mugaccinos on a busy barista's counter top?

( http://ozwords.org/?p=4286 Mugaccino or Mugachino )

I saw our chickens, chooks, hens, whatever you want to call bum-nut producers, those cackle berry factories we keep in a pen down the back yard and give our daily meal scraps to, and they faithfully squeeze out an egg each per day on average- I saw three of these up near the driveway gate. We've had to close it and throw a couple of scraps of four by two underneath so they don't slip under and end up on the street to be hit by a car.



I took a photo of them, even though they were almost in shadow and hard to see, to demonstrate how easy it is to blend in, and become unnoticed.

They were all just out of the sun, sharing the shadows. I noticed their behaviour just before this because we'd just let them out for a run. They always tear around like mad things, trying to get there first, weaving this way and that like a flock of flying birds, except they remained on the ground.
When they walked toward the drive, they walked slowly at first, but then you could see their minds (though tiny) imagining some snails or some other yummy tucker, ahead of them. So as one, they all gradually sped up, all running flat out for that prize. But it was only imaginary, because there was nothing there. They all ended up near the gate, pecking around on the concrete, and then hopefully strutting along the paling fence, where the pickings were just as bare.

Elsewhere was plenty of green grass, but in outdoing one another in some imagined contest, they only ended up with nothing.
And that, dear fellow writing enthusiasts, without sticking my beak in too much, is something we don't want to finish up with.
Nothing except sameness. Be yourself. Be honest. Be different if that's how you are.


Music: Sugarjag by Bergerac
http://bergerac.bandcamp.com/track/sugarjag

Learning is good and essential, but it isn't the magnet of being original. Be fresh, colourful, interesting.




Don't be afraid to stand tall, stand alone, stand out.



Let skill and strength of character guide us to a path of individuality. There could be treasure at the end of that rainbow.



Sparky



PS. It occurred to me that this blog entry sounds like I'm having a go at people doing NaNo. Well, NaNo was the last thing from my mind when I wrote this. NaNo is a huge confidence boost, and a big gust of wind behind our learning curve. It isn't about being a clone at all.