Kevin Smith used to come in to a restaurant we owned and I've always liked him, he's a super nice guy. I'm not big into quoting people, I feel that it tends to get abused by people who can't come up with their own words. However, below is a fan asking Kevin Smith for a pep talk and this is his response, throughout several tweets. I thought it was very encouraging and motivating and as stated in my earlier tweet, it shows why he is who he is and not a "chimp":
Via @amydezellar to @ThatKevinSmith "I need a locker-room style pep talk about continuing to write"
@ThatKevinSmith's response "Writing is the closest any man or woman will ever come to playing God (or A god). Some will say childbirth, but that's giving life, not playing God. Some will argue the cruel play at angry gods, but any animal can inflict pain; cruelty is not playing God, it's playing Man. Some will point to art or music, but the canvases, while valid & beautiful, are limited to what is heard or what is seen. Film? I'm living proof that even chimps can make cinema if there's enough talent to back it up; and the talent is never in the individual anyway, it's in the group effort of MANY filmmakers aiding the one in telling a story. I love film; it has given me everything I have today. But even filmmaking is not playing God. Only writing - amongst not only all the arts, but amongst ALL of humanity's waking endeavors - allows we mere mortals a true taste of all-encompassing creation along the lines of that which God (or A god; or a god-like energy from which the universe sprang) knew or knows. You sit down with a blank page or a blank screen and you create a universe. You fashion a world. You populate it with whimsies and desires. You make the world the way you feel it oughta be. And you don't have to show a single image to convey your creation to others. The more you share it, the more your fiction becomes a reality for others - a reality that can even manifest itself in that most unimaginative & over-valued currency: cold, hard cash. But for any writer, money is never the motivator: it's the crushing need to get that story/blog/script/poem off your chest on onto someone else's mind. A writer doesn't need motivation because a writer can never shut it off. When you write, you are as a god - or even THE God. Who needs motivation for that? You wanna be enjoy the perks of godhood without some jackass nailing you to a cross? Go write something. Right now. Stop reading me."
Then he ends it, of course, with a little touch of the Kevin Smith we know:
"They gone? Those "writers"? *phew!* I thought we'd never get rid of 'em, the artsy-fartsy fucks. Okay: lemme tell ya 'bout my wife's ass..."
So go write!
Clare xoxo
