Norman Green

PLAY YOUR OWN GAME

Jeremy Lin, the New York Knicks hot new superstar point guard, said that last year, on those infrequent occasions when he got into a game, he concentrated on fitting in. He decided that if he got a shot this year he was going to succeed or fail on the basis of playing his own game. So he finally got his shot, and the rest is history.

Go Jeremy!

What I take from that is that you have to write what you want to write, not what your mother (or anybody else) wants you to write. I’m not saying you shouldn’t listen to advice, as a matter of fact I do that myself. I told a good friend of mind from Brooklyn that I was in between writing projects and didn’t have much of a clue what I should do next. ‘Get back to the street,’ he told me. ‘Get back to Bushwick.’ I value his opinions, and not just on writing, either, so I listen. But still, it’s a temptation to try and figure out what would stand a better chance of finding a broader audience. Unless you hit one out of the park on your first time up at bat, I do think it’s human nature to wonder what sort of manuscript would bring you more readers than the last one. I’m not sure there’s ever a good answer to a question like that, though. It will take me a year, more or less, to write my next novel and just because a particular topic is hot right now does not mean anyone will still be interested in it a year or two from now.

Besides, I don’t think I do vampires very well.

Not the fictional kind, anyhow. No capes or long white fangs for me, thanks. There is no shortage of genuine predators, though. And why do they need to be supernatural, I ask you? Check out ‘The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon,’ one of Stephen King’s better efforts. This girl gets lost in the woods and winds up being stalked by a giant bear. You can’t tell me that you can scare the poop out of yourself any more thoroughly with a Satanic bear over a real one. The real one wants to kill you and eat you, isn’t that bad enough? And why do we have to invent werewolves and vampires, aliens and chupacabra, give me a break. There’s enough real stuff to be afraid of.

I think I do inner city predators pretty well, so maybe my buddy from Brooklyn has a point.

Yeah, I can do that. I think I will try to follow Lin’s example and win or lose playing my own game, not someone else’s.

On the topic of invented horrors, I must admit that I am intrigued by one of J.K.Rowling’s throwaway characters, Teddy Lupin. He only got a paragraph or two right at the very end of it all, but if you read the books you know what I’m talking about. Now there’s a guy who’s got an inner demon and a half, and he can’t win because it’s not some parasite trying to influence him in the wrong direction, it’s part of who he really is. It’s him…

I hope Rowling does something with the guy…

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