Bob Mould on Creativity

Interesting thoughts on the creative process from the ever-interesting Bob Mould:

"The upside of this, I suppose, is that the art of storytelling never really changes; we simply repeat the things we hear that resonate, adding our own embellishments, the chinese whisper, the gossip, reverse the last two chords, change 'she' to 'he', speed it up a little bit. Sample, time stretch, stutter, filter. I think I still get it, most of the time."

Though he's referring directly to music, his idea applies to art in general. Nobody really creates anything new ("There is no new thing under the sun" applies as much today as in biblical times), but embellishes and riffs on an existing body of work. My writing is certainly no exception. I don't pretend to be anything but derivative.