Friday, September 14, 2012

Unique Just Like Everyone Else...

When I was in kindergarten, I somehow got ahold of and understood the whole "bring the teacher an apple" thing.

I gave my teacher an orange.

I thought I was terribly unique.

I think since then, I've been seeking that same feeling of triumph, the pride that comes with knowing you're different than everyone else.

When I'm working on my novel, and things are getting tedious, and it's starting to seem like some really slow spy movie that could hardly be called a "thriller," I still sometimes push on. Even when I know a scene doesn't belong and I don't like it anymore, because hey, it's different.

I don't think I'm going to do that anymore.

I'm also not going to change things just because they aren't different enough. I think I may have included, by accident, a creature in the story that could possibly be confused with a certain mythological creature (and I'll let you figure which one.) While looking something up the other day, I realized that this creature might be in my story, by accident, and that my turn off some people.

But I love that part of the story way too much, and not in a bad way. It's a major piece of the plot. It's important, it's terrifying, and without it, well, there might just be a drama about two high school kids facing the perils of college applications and standardized testing.

Plus I have not once, since that realization, thought "oh, maybe I should change it..."

It's my story. It's unique because it's my voice, because it has substance, and because there's much more to it than uniqueness for the sake of being different.

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