Sarcasm is Something That I Do

Dear Kira,

First off, I'm kinda concerned that you think sarcasm is bad. I mean, sarcasm is what I do. You ask me if skydiving from space is a good idea? Oh yeah sure, it's a great idea, not dangerous at all! I think that if everything I said was taken seriously, the CIA would have me in a dark, little room for questioning right about now. But actually.

Anyway...

I guess that the easiest way to answer your question would be to refer you to T.S. Eliot's essay, Tradition and the Individual Talent but I'm not going to do that because that would be cruel and too much like my English 200 midterm for comfort. So, to make a long, long, LONG story short, my answer is no, I don't think it's possible to create a "unique" writing voice because, let's be honest here, every writer is influenced by the writers that have come before them. I don't think that's neccesarily a bad thing, or that you need to be too worried about it because, my experience is that, over time, you develop your own distinct writing style from the bits and pieces of literature you've been exposed to.

Still, I know how it feels to think you're "copying". What really concerns me is that there are supposedly only four "plots" in literary history: tragic, comic, romantic, and ironic. That makes being original hard. What am I supposed to do? Write a story about buying a gallon of milk? That would be a real thriller. I don't know, maybe it's possible to be original in literature. What do you think?

Sigh,
Maria