“Don’t be embarrassed. Especially if you write humor….We all have our kinks (I’ve got all their albums!), our weirdness, our neurosis and our strange ideas–God knows you could fill a city with mine–but most people are afraid to admit to them for fear of being laughed at. Well, you’re writing humor, so that’s the point?….My whole life I’ve hated conformity and everybody trying to act like everybody else. You know what? Act and write like who you are. Don’t be ashamed of yourself. Your wierdness is what makes you special. Share it. Embrace it. If someone doesn’t like it or is offended by it, then fuck them. Why would you want to be friends with a flat out asshole like that anyway?”
Nina
Thanks for posting this. I really needed to hear this. I sit here afraid to write what bounces around my head, and I wasn’t sure why.
( ok I know it was probably because I was afraid of what people would think and thats stupid.)
So thank you.
I guess I should thank Marty as well shouldn’t I?
Nina,
I’m wondering if you ever read / heard the Bruce Sterling speech, wherein he rallies the love of our strangeness:
“…Follow your weird, ladies and gentlemen. Forget trying to pass for normal. Follow your geekdom. Embrace your nerditude. In the immortal words of Lafcadio Hearn, a geek of incredible obscurity whose work is still in print after a hundred years, “woo the muse of the odd…”
Link to Speech: http://www.eff.org/Misc/Publications/Bruce_Sterling/comp_game_designers.article
Link to index of Speeches:
http://www.chriswaltrip.com/sterling/speeches.html
Erick