water for elephants and other stories

It's Monday once again, turn turn turn.

I spent most of my weekend reading Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants, which is one of those bestselling books that I always meant to sit down and read and never did until I received it via the Christmas cookie and book swap from one of my college ladyfriends. There was a time (a couple of years ago) when my interest was first piqued by the history of the circus, especially during Depression-era America, and I even thought: what a fabulous television show that would make! (In case you haven't noticed, I often have ideas for fabulous television shows.) That was until I started digging a little deeper and discovered that it had already been done. I immediately ordered the first disc of Carnivale through Netflix and sat down to watch, but K was so unimpressed he left during the first episode and started cleaning or something and although I hung in a little bit longer I ultimately decided the dark and dreary style just wasn't for me. Still, I was a bit bummed that somebody else had preemptively stolen my idea and turned it into a show I didn't love. As a creative person, this is definitely something that I struggle with--is there such thing as an original idea anymore? It sometimes seems as if anything worth doing has already been done, which is fine if you limit your creative activity to personal, private pursuits but not so fine if you want to, say, make a living. It's sort of like fashion blogging in a way. Sure, sometimes people come up with an interesting original concept, but more often than not we're all doing the same damn thing every day. Fine by me--I just like you guys and want to be a part of this fabulous community--but it's frightening when I'm working on a new project and I feel as if any day some other writer could pull my ideas out from under me.

Anyway, I really enjoyed Water for Elephants and would highly recommend it. I'm also super excited to see the movie, which is scheduled to release in April of this year (although after the royal disappointment that was the blockbuster film adaptation of Eat Pray Love, maybe I should lower my expectations a little bit). PS: Elephants are Awesome.