Confession of a Copycat

I don't like cats. I know. I know. I just offended half my audience. Deal with it. The thing is that I grew up with the cat from hell. No, really. He smelled of sulfur and his eyes glowed, seriously, all the time. I'm pretty sure he was possessed.

That being said, I do have a certain affinity for felines because I am a copycat.

If you grab a book off my shelf, you'll be able to tell if it's one of my all-time favorites by the amount of dog-ears and highlighting. Why do I trash my most beloved novels? I keep a notebook, several, actually (I can never remember where I leave them, so if there's a bunch laying around, I never need hunt for them). In the notebooks, I copy down sentences that make me weep, wet my pants, or hang my head in self-pity knowing that I'll never be able to put words together in such a fashion. Why bother? Several reasons . . .

- The act of writing down beautiful writing inspires my own writing.

- Innovation is often fueled by imitation.

- And most importantly, in the words of Picasso, "Good artists copy, great artists steal."

   (click to tweet)

Now don't get me wrong. I am not advocating plagiarism. Felonies are never fun. Here's how I use those notebooks . . .

When I'm polishing up a rough draft, I love to add in lines that really zing. I look for places that are dull or dragging, then open up one of my notebooks. I find a sentence or two that could work in that spot, then I use them to inspire me to think creatively by re-writing them into something different. Need an example?

Copied sentence: His throat twisted into a sodden, knotted rope.

My innovation: Words knotted in his throat, cutting off air, breath, hope.

See what I did? I used knotted and throat from the first sentence and then rewrote them into my own voice.

For more on imitation, here's a great article by 99U: Here is Your Official Permission to Be a Copycat

You didn't think I actually came up with the idea for this post today all by myself, did you?