That Yellow Brick
Legos are perfect training for the creative process. We didn't have a bunch around the house when I was young. There were a few among the hand-me-downs and garage sale toys we played with, though, and I used them at houses of friends or relatives. I remember that regardless of how big the supply or how small the project, there was a good chance you'd be one short of the right size and colour for the job. No matter. That was good for teaching how to improvise a solution. Standard blocks and other building toys were good practice, too, and the habit of reusing materials in our house gave me plenty of opportunity to stretch my creative muscles. My Barbie drove around the house in a tissue box convertible, wore designer handkerchief dresses and ate from acorn cap plates. Seeing things in new ways was standard procedure. I only mention the Legos because playing with them is a common experience for many; so it's an easily digested metaphor.
Those interlocking bricks are often sold in a package with a project pictured on the box, some construct you'll be able to make with the pieces you've been given. Naturally, once you've tried the proposed creation, you go on to see what else you can build. The pieces are put together, taken apart, then put together again into something new. Imagination can create hundreds of things from the same collection of pieces. The creative process we use when we write, paint, make music or whatever art we practice operates similarly. Every moment of our lives, we take in pieces that are observations about our environment or human nature, or quirks of personality. We even pick up hints of others' creations. These are our blocks to build with. In a way, we deconstruct our world, rearrange the pieces, and come up with something new.
But since we're all pulling from the same box of Legos, there are bound to be some similar bits among our creations.
This has been the topic of my thoughts lately because I just discovered a new fantasy novel titled with a place name I had used in our book. It's only one of many names in the book and one rooted in mythology. It's simply descriptive, an Anglicized version of a name well known to those familiar with Norse mythology. So this little coincidence shouldn't bother me, but it kind-of does. It's not the first time I've recognized uncomfortably similar elements in some new book or movie, never anything significant, but uncomfortable nonetheless. I know there was no copying in either direction. We just came up with the same ideas for a name or a scene or a wisdom a character speaks. Their works only managed to get published before ours. Still it has me wondering, how original is our work if others could think up these same bits?
My conclusion has to be that ours is as original as any other. Legos are the reason. When you create a marvelous vehicle with your Legos, should you be less enchanted with it because someone else used a 5cm yellow brick in theirs, too? Do you think yours less original because another player also fitted his with wheels? No. It's the nature of the game. Unless you were going for something completely off the wall, completely unrecognizable, you're going to see similarities. Likewise, when you're trying to make an imaginary world seem real, you're going to use some familiar elements and run the risk that those same elements will show up in someone else's imagination, too. The substance of the story is still distinct from others. The style and the vision of the creation is still ours alone. This little nagging irritation I feel is nothing more than that voice each of us has that asks "am I good enough?" and should be silenced with a resounding "yes." We have all reached into the same box of bricks and come out with similar handfuls. What we do with them is as individual as we are ourselves.
Those interlocking bricks are often sold in a package with a project pictured on the box, some construct you'll be able to make with the pieces you've been given. Naturally, once you've tried the proposed creation, you go on to see what else you can build. The pieces are put together, taken apart, then put together again into something new. Imagination can create hundreds of things from the same collection of pieces. The creative process we use when we write, paint, make music or whatever art we practice operates similarly. Every moment of our lives, we take in pieces that are observations about our environment or human nature, or quirks of personality. We even pick up hints of others' creations. These are our blocks to build with. In a way, we deconstruct our world, rearrange the pieces, and come up with something new.
But since we're all pulling from the same box of Legos, there are bound to be some similar bits among our creations.
This has been the topic of my thoughts lately because I just discovered a new fantasy novel titled with a place name I had used in our book. It's only one of many names in the book and one rooted in mythology. It's simply descriptive, an Anglicized version of a name well known to those familiar with Norse mythology. So this little coincidence shouldn't bother me, but it kind-of does. It's not the first time I've recognized uncomfortably similar elements in some new book or movie, never anything significant, but uncomfortable nonetheless. I know there was no copying in either direction. We just came up with the same ideas for a name or a scene or a wisdom a character speaks. Their works only managed to get published before ours. Still it has me wondering, how original is our work if others could think up these same bits?
My conclusion has to be that ours is as original as any other. Legos are the reason. When you create a marvelous vehicle with your Legos, should you be less enchanted with it because someone else used a 5cm yellow brick in theirs, too? Do you think yours less original because another player also fitted his with wheels? No. It's the nature of the game. Unless you were going for something completely off the wall, completely unrecognizable, you're going to see similarities. Likewise, when you're trying to make an imaginary world seem real, you're going to use some familiar elements and run the risk that those same elements will show up in someone else's imagination, too. The substance of the story is still distinct from others. The style and the vision of the creation is still ours alone. This little nagging irritation I feel is nothing more than that voice each of us has that asks "am I good enough?" and should be silenced with a resounding "yes." We have all reached into the same box of bricks and come out with similar handfuls. What we do with them is as individual as we are ourselves.
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