Be as Open to Influence as Possible

Margaret Wise Brown, Maggie Nelson, Consuelo Kanaga, the moon, and me.

Thanks to fake news, corporate interests, and the rise of social media stars, the word “influencer” has gotten a bad rap. We see most of today’s influencers as inauthentic and dishonest, which is why I cringe when someone refers to me as one. There were times in my career when I felt like the commercialization of my brand was ruining it—and me. It’s a fate that most businesses looking to scale must contend with. Sometimes, I’m a little jealous of people who aren’t bothered by it. Still, I found it unsustainable. It’s not that I’m entirely against commercial endorsements, but they’re difficult to get right, and the more you’re forced to do, the less true influence you have. But for me, the pleasure of the internet is the pleasure of influence—in the amalgamation of shared connections, voices, and ideas. But nowadays, to admit to being influenced seems like a confession of unoriginality, or worse, weak-mindedness, but I don’t believe that. Even those who pride themselves on their unique sensibilities are influenced by things; they just refuse to recognize them. When I’m influenced by something, my first impulse is to share it. It’s no fun to keep it to myself. And now, as someone who writes about art and ideas, recognizing influences both in the works and in myself is critical to unpacking them.

The word “influence” comes from medieval Latin for “influentia,” meaning “to flow into.” This inflow seeps into porous spaces, which is why commercial brands want to blur the line between authentic recommendations and paid advertisements. However, a consequence of that is distrust—we become closed off to other people's ideas. I try to be as open to influence as possible. One of my favorite writers, Zadie Smith, talks about this a lot. In an essay “That Crafty Feeling” from Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays (2009), she writes:

It’s a matter of temperament. Some writers are the kind of solo violinists who need complete silence to tune their instruments. Others want to hear every member of the orchestra—they’ll take a cue from a clarinet, from an oboe, even. I am one of those. My writing desk is covered in open novels. I read lines to swim in a certain sensibility, to strike a particular note, to encourage rigor when I’m too sentimental, to bring verbal ease when I’m syntactically uptight. I think of reading like a balanced diet; if your sentences are baggy, too baroque, cut back on fatty Foster Wallace, say, and pick up Kafka, as roughage. If your aesthetic has become so refined it is stopping you from placing a single black mark on white paper, stop worrying so much about what Nabokov would say; pick up Dostoyevsky, patron saint of substance over style.

She goes on to talk about the English poet John Keats.

A suburban, lower-middle-class boy, a few steps removed from the literary scene, he made his own scene out of the books of his library. He never feared influence—he devoured influences. He wanted to learn from them, even at the risk of their voices swamping his own…The term role model is so odious, but the truth is it’s a very strong writer indeed who gets by without a model kept somewhere in mind. I think of Keats. Keats slogging away, devouring books, plagiarizing, impersonating, adapting, struggling, growing, writing many poems that made him blush and then a few that made him proud, learning everything he could from whomever he could find, dead or alive, who might have something useful to teach him.

This devouring, this insatiable hunger—for books, for words, for art—feels gluttonous, but it fuels me. Like Smith, my desk is covered with open books, their pages dogeared and furiously underlined. My internet browser is similarly stuffed full of open tabs, each with a tasty morsel of something I want to keep eating. My excessive need for more is only curbed by an even stronger need to purge. I have to get it out. But I resist, I rest, and I wait for it to metabolize. I constantly have to remind myself that this uncomfortable period of waiting is crucial to my creative process. It’s why I write so slowly. Most of my writing happens in my head, sometimes consciously, but more often unconsciously. Everything I’ve ingested is being converted into energy that will fuel my next idea. (Walking usually helps speed up the process.)

Something I find fascinating about the devouring phase is how a seemingly random book, article, or conversation will spark a connection that will unlock an idea. Or how a divergent path can lead me to my desired destination. These happy accidents are subtle; if I’m closed off in any way—too tired, too distracted, too cynical—I will miss them. I often think alone time is all I need to supercharge my ideas. However, being social (something I’m not always good at), moving my body, getting in nature, listening to music, watching films, and trying new things are also essential parts of my writing process. But none of these are as influential as reading. Reading changes everything.