Why writers should never read books (or watch TV)
Nige - my other half – is a singer/songwriter. He'd likely tell you otherwise, but I heard his songs (and learnt all the lyrics – it's an affliction) before I even set eyes on him, so whatever else he claims he is, he is also a singer/songwriter. I mention this to qualify something he said to me not long after we became friends: there are only so many ways to combine the musical elements; inevitably, people will write melodies that have been written before. Or something like that. I'm paraphrasing to fit the theme of this blog post, which will be short. I'm trying to get back into the habit of posting more often than once a year. That point about songs came back to me a couple of weeks ago when I was watching artists on YouTube demonstrate how to draw faces, and one of them said something about all art being derivative, stolen from others. The key is to learn to 'steal like an artist'. So I don't sidetrack, I'll just add a link to a TED talk by Austin K...