46: A Balance with Altruism
2/19/2013
I am disturbed. Many things are disturbing me these days. Personal things, interpersonal things, my failure to meet my Batu deadlines. And now this…
Somebody who knew vaguely about my Batu writing suggested I read “People of the wolf” by Michael and Kathleen O’Neal Gear. Historical fiction about the first people crossing the land bridge between Asia and the Americas. I didn’t want to read this for the same reason I don’t want to read “Clan of the Cave Bear,” by Jean Auel. It’s not African for one thing, but I also assumed it would be overly focused on anthropology instead of literary value or characterization. And I don’t do research via fiction where I can never know what information is based on fact and what is just being made up.
But now I can add a new, and more compelling reason to avoid reading such books. They steal my ideas! I don’t mean plagiarism obviously, since they wrote theirs long before I even thought about writing mine. I mean that they steal my ideas by making me unable to use the creative inspiration that comes to me because I know it’s already been done. I don’t want to know what’s been done, so I can be uninhibited and free to tell my story any way I want without concerns of copying other writers.
All I read of “People of the Wolf” was the six-page prologue. It began with a vision quest aided by a psychotropic. It had a sex scene that was the conception of the protagonist (presumably), whose mother died giving birth to him. The birth was shrouded in portents, signifying this was a child of great destiny. And the number four was utilized ritually and repeatedly.
Sound familiar?
There were significant differences from my prologue though. In “People of the Wolf” the vision encompassed the entire prologue, the mother was raped, she gave birth to twins, and the entire tone was darker than mine in terms of violence and mood. But our basic motifs are identical.
If I had read this book prior to formulating my story, I wouldn’t have utilized these motifs to preserve my originality. And by not using them my whole story would have been altered. As it is, I won’t change a thing, but I’m disturbed.
I still have a lot of creating to do, and I want no creative inhibitions, so I won’t be reading any books like these until all four of my books are finished in their first draft form. Once my story is fixed in stone and the writing threads are all sewn together, then I can read books like these. But for now, though I want help with cultural and geographical details, tools and historical technology, etc., I don’t want any creative help with story ideas and plotting.
All the books I read on how to write fiction tell me I’m wrong in this regard. They preach that I should read everything I can get my hands on in the genre I am writing in, so that I know what’s been done and what that genre’s standards are. And that makes sense from a commercial point of view. There’s no money in reinventing the wheel. But from my point of view as an artist, I don’t give a damn. If it’s original to me and I love it, that’s all that matters at this point. If it turns out in the end to be a lot like a thousand others already published… oh well.
But I can’t be true to me and the story inside me if I’m second guessing as to whether my ideas are mine or not. My creative freedom is far more important than the benefits of thoroughly knowing the other works of my genre. A strategy of ignorance, in the hopes it will protect me.
The fiction I’m drawn to these days inspire me, but they don’t hand me ideas. I read to study and appreciate the craft of language usage, so I tend to lean toward literary fiction. I look for good stories and characters, then look at how it was achieved.
Present-Day Reflection
7/10/2026
There’s a good deal of selfishness in my strategy of ignorance. It’s completely discarding the needs of other readers as I focus entirely on me and my own needs. This flies in the face of my claims of being motivated by a desire to give something back to the world after a lifetime of being a parasite on society.
I’ve been telling myself, and anyone who will listen, that I want a legacy of giving back after a lifetime of taking – decades of consuming and indulging in the fruits of my culture without contributing to it in any meaningful way. My Batu saga is supposed to be an attempt at correcting this imbalance. At least a little bit. And yet, my sense of altruism is beginning to feel more like a thin veil of self-deception where everything I’ve been working toward is still focused entirely on me.
It’s not lost on me that this theme is also reflected in the writing of the Batu saga itself – the issue my protagonist is constantly struggling with as he tries to balance his needs with the needs of his society. Finding a niche that is both true to himself while also being beneficial to others.
As with everything in my life, including this website, it’s a constant work in progress. Work that never ends.
