Re: conlanging and journaling
| From: | Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...> |
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| Date: | Thursday, February 14, 2008, 15:59 |
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Hallo!
On Tue, 12 Feb 2008 01:07:58 -0500, Rick Harrison wrote:
> On Mon, 11 Feb 2008 19:04:16 +0100, Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...>
> wrote:
>
> >Yes. Old Albic would not be the way it is now without the online
> >conlanging community. Many of its features are inspired by what
> >I saw in other people's conlangs. Well, nobody exists in isolation;
> >we are all influenced by what we see around us.
>
> True. However I often feel embarrassed, 10 or 20 years later, when I look
> back on something I created and realize how intensely it was influenced
> by what others were doing. For example _all_ of the poetry I wrote in my
> early 20s was an echo of Samuel Delaney's novel _Dhalgren._ I can hardly
> stand to look at it.
I know what you are talking about. I also have made things in the past
that were too much influenced by someone else. Fantasy worlds that
resembled Middle-earth, fantasy illustrations that resembled album covers
by Roger Dean, and all that. There is nothing wrong with using someone
else's work as a starting point, but at some point you ought to develop
your own style.
> I fantasize about going into seclusion and trying to scrub all the
> external influences out of my brain. (I wrote about it as the final entry
> in my angsty personal blog at
http://hrick.livejournal.com/ ) I guess
> such a scrubbing is not really possible. sigh
>
> Jörg, do you ever _regret_ being influenced?