I read recently that there are two types of artist: decorators and revolutionaries. (Although this possibly misses a third type, like Emin and Hirst, who are just shit.)
So it made me think about if to be original one has to be revolutionary. This is, of course, talking in the creative arts sense, not in the overthrowing the Equatorial Guinea government sense. And being revolutionary sounds like it requires a lot of time and effort, trial and error, failure and re-starts, whereas I’m more inclined towards instant gratification, like Pot Noodle. But then I came across the following quote by Jean Cocteau: An original artist cannot copy. He therefore has only to copy to be original.
This took a load of my mind. There I was, trying to write something different and new when all I have to do is copy. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m just going to pop down to my local library to find what will become my first novel.
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