{"id":3730,"date":"2013-09-16T10:48:26","date_gmt":"2013-09-15T22:48:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dfmamea.com\/?p=3730"},"modified":"2013-09-16T10:48:26","modified_gmt":"2013-09-15T22:48:26","slug":"legacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/legacy\/","title":{"rendered":"Legacy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Subaru_Legacy\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/f\/ff\/08-Subaru-Legacy-SpecB.jpg\/800px-08-Subaru-Legacy-SpecB.jpg\" width=\"800\" height=\"487\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Last month I was asked what kind of legacy I wanted to leave behind &#8211; that if I had ten years left in my writing career, what would I want to be known for &#8211; film? television? theatre?<\/p>\n<p>I was stumped in that moment as the following questions fizzed and <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Twister_%28game%29\" target=\"_blank\">Twister<\/a>-ed through my head:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>did I want to keep writing for the silver screen?<\/li>\n<li>or did I want to try a running jump for the golden-age-of-television train?<\/li>\n<li>or was theatre &#8211; with all its in-built &#8216;Nam-movie-like flashbacks to the terrors of Sunday school &#8211; my metier?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>All I managed in reply was a drowning fish impression.<\/p>\n<p>The past few months has seen me more focussed than usual on a number of projects*. Whenever I&#8217;d <span style=\"text-decoration: line-through;\">stall<\/span> encounter a <span style=\"text-decoration: line-through;\">problem<\/span> challenge &#8211; like a question of plotting, or a certain character inconsistency, or finding the right typeface for the title &#8211; the question of a &#8220;D F Mamea legacy&#8221; would flick about my head like an annoying insect.<\/p>\n<p>I can understand the motivational aspect of thinking about a legacy. <b><i>I<\/i><\/b> already know what I want to achieve in five\/ten\/twenty years&#8217; time.  For me, the thing about the question of legacy is that 1). it assumes a level of control from beyond the grave, and 2). it infers the kind of ambition that I don&#8217;t think I have.<\/p>\n<p>I want to tell stories. I want to keep close around me the people I enjoy working with. I want to hold onto my loved ones because they&#8217;re a dream come true.<\/p>\n<p>So. The plan is to a). continue writing whatever turns me on &#8211; and\/or pays handsomely &#8211; over the next five\/ten\/twenty years, b). enjoy the process not just by myself but with my fellow creatives and collaborators, and c). persuade <b>The Goddess<\/b> that the installation of an half-ton AS\/NZS3809-compliant safe is a heckuva deal for as many Kaimanawa ponies as she wants.<\/p>\n<p>Legacy, schmegacy:  write it &#8211; and if people like it, <i>good<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>* Winning a couple of awards is a wonderful intermittent reinforcer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last month I was asked what kind of legacy I wanted to leave behind &#8211; that if I had ten years left in my writing career, what would I want to be known for &#8211; film? television? theatre? I was stumped in that moment as the following questions fizzed and Twister-ed through my head: did &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/legacy\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Legacy&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[9,4,6,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","category-scriptwriting","category-television","category-theatre"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3730"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3767,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3730\/revisions\/3767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}