Are You Sure You’re My Son?
So I e-mailed my mom some of my book reviews the other day, and she writes back, “This is absolutely amazing! Are you sure you’re my son?”
I wasn’t entirely sure how to take that. Surely she would know the answer better than I.
I wrote back asking for clarification, and she said, “It’s just that dad and I are not very creative and I wonder where all that creativity came from. I think part of it was that you were at an in-between age for the kids in the neighborhood. Most were Johnny’s age or Kelly’s. You spent a lot of time reading comic books and playing with your toys and imagining all sorts of things. I really think that’s great for kids to have time to do that because most kids have great imaginations that just need some developing.”
Not sure, but I think this might be my mother’s nice way of saying I was a loser and had no friends.
Maybe she’s right . Imagination is like a muscle, and needs exercise. The thing is, though, I never really felt like I didn’t have people to play with. It was more that I didn’t like to play a lot of the things the kids my age wanted to play. I wanted to be reading my comics and books and playing with my toys, because it was far more interesting to me than chasing a ball around, or having some other kind of organized fun.
On the other hand, I don’t know what’s so hard for her to believe. My parents raised me to value reading and hard work, and to be open-minded and try to understand people who are different from me. I think those things are by far the most important skills required for writing.
Making up monsters is the easy part.
I would argue that it’s your fascination with people that makes you a great writer. You have an uncanny ability to perceive the motivations of those totally unlike you. Couple this with deep empathy and good old fashioned *interest* in what makes folks tick – and you have all the necessary ingredients for compelling characters, which is the root of all great writing. Why do you think that politics fascinates you so much? You’re watching people interact – piercing the veil of what they say and looking at what they actually mean. You eat that stuff up.
Yeah, what Myke said. If you didn’t hate small talk so much, you could totally be Mike Rowe!
By the way, that’s a great picture of your mom.
SO… are we meeting at Midtown on Wednesday to work out our imaginations? I think I pulled a muscle last week readin Grant Morrison’s Batman, but I should be fine in a few days.
Mike Rowe? The programmer who got sued by a certain large company for putting up a website for his business, MikeRoweSoft?
Hey Buddy, you leave Mike Rowe alone.
That man is an America Hero. Not just anyone will get themselves covered in poo every week and film it for our viewing pleasure.
Oh, and now that I look into it, it’s not even the same guy you’re talking about.
So, uh… forget it.