Hello
I saw you complain about the amount of e-mail you received and though
I would add to your woes.
I notice you bring up people who have proven successful at creating
content that is enjoyed by millions. In your most recent set of posts,
you brought up Tom Clancy. I was basically wanting to point out
someone who might well be the ‘King’ of creating works that are
reflective of society, nature, and the zeitgeist while, most
importantly, still remaining entertaining.
I think that examining Stephen King and his work ethic reveals
something about the place where many of the ‘creative’ types lose
their footing – the moment of inspiration. Stephen King is -very-
willing to talk about his inspiration for stories. Pet Semetary, for
example: he had the idea when a truck killed his daughter’s cat and he
had to go bury it. The story? A truck kills a man’s son’s cat and he
has to go bury it, but his friend tells him of an Indian burial ground
that is so cursed that any animal buried there comes back from the
dead, and advises him to secretly bury the cat there before his son
knows. The story goes on to be more frightening, obviously, but the
whole core of the idea he claimed popped into his head between one
side of the street and the other as he crossed it with his daughter’s
dead cat.
Upon driving through a seemingly deserted town on a book tour, he
thought that the empty streets seemed terrifying, as though they were
hiding some dark secret. Maybe everyone in town was dead! He began
writing a story about just such an empty town, called ‘Desperation.’
(Both the town and the book). He didn’t think ‘Let me make up
something creative and creepy, using my superior powers of
awesomeness!’ He -recognized- the natural fear that this common
situation (quiet, empty desert town) made him feel, knew that others
would share the feeling, and set about trying to capture it in a form
that could be shared with others. Because of this, I can shudder in my
chair as I read at the thought of the empty town without having to see
it.
This is different from thinking ‘I bet I can think up the scariest
thing! Scariest thing ever! How about a…. box-like thing that’s
PURPLE, yeah that’s it PURPLE, cuz that’s weird! Yeah, I’m creative!’
This creature would then be in a Final Fantasy game or something, and
fail to frighten me.
He also points out that some of his best received books were not ones
that came naturally to him. About his first published book, “Carrie,”
he says he didn’t even like the main characters, didn’t identify with
them, and found it hard to write about things he didn’t know much
about (girl’s locker room, for example). Still, that book (his fifth,
though first to be accepted for publication) rocketed him to the fame
he has enjoyed for almost forty years. Miyamoto should think about
that the next time he is choosing between ‘having a blast’ making
Super Mario Galaxy 2393 and ‘putting his nose to the grindstone’ and
making SMB6.
I didn’t mention Stephen King since I am not as familiar with him.
When we hear stories of ‘Miyamoto as boy exploring a cave’, the journalists or whatever are writing it as a manner as if this is coming from Miyamoto instead of Miyamoto recognizing it is coming from Human Nature. When Miyamoto began weighing himself, he tapped into something of Human Nature of wanting to get into more fit. And this is why Wii Fit sells. There is no ‘creativity’ in it as traditionally defined.
I do use this example of Stephen King to explain what a wife really is. When King wrote Carrie, he wasn’t famous and had no money. He didn’t think the book was that good so he threw it into the trash. His wife picked it out and sent it to the publisher (where it got accepted and became a big hit). That is a wife.
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