Who were your biggest influences?

For those who dabble in creative developement - Who inspired you or most influenced your craft?

Those who had the biggest impact on me (between the ages 10 -19):
George Lucas
C.S. Lewis
J.R.R. Tolkien
E. Gary Gygax

The works of these people largely shaped the direction I took my life, my college education, personal ideology and my career. Raiders Of The Lost Ark actually directed me to a college education in archaeology. AD&D guided me to a lifelong study of esoteric philosophy, comparative religion and the Greek classics. Lewis shaped my ideas on God. J.R.R. Tolkien built in me a deep passion for smart fantasy genre writing, and his approach still influences my own work as a novelist.

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R.I.P.

Some books I found interesting. All of these are awesome story source material, as well.

Classic Religious Texts Still In Use
Bhagavad-Gita
The Analects of Confucius
Old & New Testament
The Catechism Of The Catholic Church

Classic Thought
The Nature Of The Gods by Cicero
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
City Of God by St. Augustine

Ancient Religions
Egyptian Book Of The Dead
Manetho – Complete Writings

Greek Mystery School Studies
The Pythagorean Sourcebook
Phaedo by Plato
Phaedrus by Plato
The Republic by Plato
Timaeus & Critias by Plato
Moralia by Plutarch
Isis & Osiris by Plutarch
Apollonius Of Tyana by Flavius Philostratus

Esoteric Comparative Religion
Anacalypsis by Godfrey Higgins
Sod: The Mysteries Of Adoni by S.F. Dunlap
Sod: The Son Of The Man by S.F. Dunlap
Morals & Dogma by Albert Pike
The Golden Bough by James George Frazer
The Secret Teachings Of All Ages by Manly P. Hall

Esoteric Philosophy
Three Books Of Occult Philosophy by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa
The Key Of Solomon The King
The History Of Magic by Eliphas Levi
The Kybalion
The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception
Man, The Grand Symbol Of The Mysteries by M.P. Hall
Melchizedek and the Mystery of Fire by M.P. Hall

Ernie Pyle

Well, Ernie died when you were one or two. I just watched he documentary Wild Bill: Hollywood Maverick, and Burgess Meredith explained how he was playing a ghost in The Story of G.I. Joe because Ernie went back to cover the War in the Pacific and died before the movie was even released.

So obviously I can understand that choice, especially based on many of your posts.

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Ernie Pyle? Interesting. I don't believe I am familiar; aside from what I just looked up. How did you come across Ernie Pyle? He is somewhat dated.


I would have to add that one of my biggest inspirations now is Roger Corman. I wish I had half the smarts of Corman.

Very surprised to hear you list C.S. Lewis, since he's unquestionably one of the largest influences on both my actual beliefs and the manner in which I form them, yet you and I seem to think quite differently on a fair number of things! Would be interested to hear which of Lewis' books you most enjoyed, etc. I do love talking about the man and his work and never miss an opportunity to do so.

Other than Lewis, obviously my own father has played a major role, and we share many innate similarities. But this has been modified and tempered by my mother, which is how I suspect it is for many younger men (and the opposite, perhaps, for many younger women? Though I'm sure there are exceptions). It can be very interesting to see yourself say or do something, and be able to pick out which part of it was just the sort of thing one parent would say or do, and another element of it just the sort of thing the other would. Or to do or say something that's like one, but modified or lessened by the other. Quite a trip, and it eradicates any lingering doubts about whether or not you were adopted, to boot.

In terms of approaching movies and reviewing them, it's unquestionably Roger Ebert. A bit cliche, I suppose, given that he's probably the most famous film critic who's ever lived, but there's a reason for that. I love that his reviews need not be constrained by the scope of the movie itself; as often as not, they're jumping off points for observations about life. And, of course, the man can just flat-out write. I sometimes notice little habits of my own that I'm certain I wouldn't have if I did not read him.

Other than that, there's probably no one person that stands out. It's more like a mix; posting here and arguing with pretty much everybody had a profound (but hard to pinpoint) effect on how I speak and think. It is very much a cumulative thing. I could list dozens of usernames that have modified the way I approach things over the years; mostly from this site, but from a few others, too. I guess that's what happens when you spend your teenage years running a message board.

Thomas Paine. Unquestionably.

His style was that of the common man to where almost anyone could pick up his reading and understand it. I do the exact same thing with practically all of my writings. I want people to be able to pick up my work and have minimal questions about what I'm trying to say, and I'm pretty sure I've made a lot of progress towards that goal. I also have a talent for explaining complex ideas in much easier and clearer ways (this has become very handy in college), even my everyday speech exhibits this trait.

As for my argumentative style, a large portion of the users here have been of great influence to me but especially Yoda and Sedai. I've learned how to shut up and listen, express my ideas in a calm civil matter, and even point out when someone is being illogical with any number of logical fallacies!

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"This is that human freedom, which all boast that they possess, and which consists solely in the fact, that men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined." -Baruch Spinoza

Kurt Vonnegut

Leonard Cohen

Tom Waits

David Letterman

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When I was around 12-13 years old back in the 1950s, I knew a lady who used to lend me books from her library, and she had two of Pyle's books that were compilations of several of the newspaper columns that he wrote in World War II. Pyle formerly was a syndicated travel writer who traveled about the country and wrote of places he saw and people he met. War came along and he was too old to be drafted, plus he was alcoholic given at times to binge drinking, but the news organization let him go overseas as a war correspondent. Pyle didn't cover the battles and commanders like other most other correspondents. He talked to the men at the front, enlisted men, NCOs, and officers and told their stories. He was in combat, and wrote things like one man pulling a dead soldier out of the seat of an antiaircraft gun and getting into that same seat to fire at attacking aircraft. He also wrote about a veteran sergent from the old regular army (the type played by Burt Lancaster in From Here to Eternity) who was with an engineer unit with the seemingly impossible job of building a bridge across a gap in a road on the side of a cliff. He'd always put the soldiers names and hometowns in the stories, which was a big thrill for them and their families.

But the best thing he ever wrote was about a group of soldiers bringing the body of a popular infantry captain by mule down a steep trail in Italy. He tells of them laying him out beside some other bodies behind a farmhouse, and how the soldiers just stood around for awhile looking at the dead officer in the pale moonlight. Then one kneels down, touches the body and says, "I'm very sorry, sir," then walks away. Another soldier kneels by the body and straightens the jagged edges of the captain's jacket around the hole left by the fatal wound. "So sorry, sir," he says. Then another soldier comes over and stands looking down at the body. "Damn it to hell," he says.

The whole story of soldiers saying goodbye to a fallen leader is told in just a few pages, but it made a hell of an impression on me at the time and still does. Pyle won the Pulitzer prize for that column and, it's the basis of the film The Story of GI Joe in which Burgess Meredith won an Oscar for playing Pyle.

I read that story as a kid and thought, "Damn, I'd like to be a newsman and write like that." Been a newsman 30+ years now, and I still hope someday to be able to write like that.

Of course, the person who taught me the most about how to live life to the fullest was my Dad, but Pyle opened my interest in journalism.

Tom Paine is a good choice for his writing ability, but his personal life wasn't much, as I recall.

Aside from starting revolutions.

I used to like to say I have read everything by Lewis, but over the years I have found this to not be the case.

The first books I read as a child, outside of my school studies (first grade, I believe), was the Lewis Naria series. I essentially learned to read by Jack Lewis. In my teens years I read the Screwtape Letters and a number of Lewis' essays. It wasn't until I joined the Navy that I read his so called "science-fiction" trilogy. Those were the last works of fiction I read before switching to philosophy and religious texts and history for all my reading needs. The "space tilogy" is something I will read again someday.

I would have to say Lewis was very significant in formulating my early religious concepts. However, over the past twenty-seven years I have conducted a pretty intensive survey of comparative religion.

I might like to get into a discussion about Lewis' work, but I have not read any of it in twenty years, so .... I am no longer an authority. Just someone with a deep emotional remembrance and love for the man's work. He was without doubt one of the most profound influences on my youth.


Pyle sounds very interesting. I know for certain I have read everything Hemingway published (books and short stories, not articles). I have also read much of Henry Miller. I read these guys in my teen and Navy years. Pyle sounds like he might fit between these two writers. I'll have to check him out someday.

I would have to add Thomas Paine as an influence on myself as well. Hang the rich (or maybe just rob them).

While my earlier years were largely shaped by writers of fiction (including Lucas's Star Wars films) - I stopped reading fiction altogether about age twenty-two. I have only read a handful of fictional works since 1990. H.G. Wells and Melville. I read some works by those guys about ten years ago. However, in the last two decades I have read a good deal of religous text, mythology, and 19th Century esoteric thought - all of which is essentially fiction. My substitute, you see.

All that type of stuff makes great source material for fiction writers. I write fiction (even though I don't read it).

Instead of reading fiction, I get my fiction fix from the movies. As some of you might know, I watch several a day. They are always on, anyway. No TV or radios here. Movies all day long.

Starting with the earliest first, I'd say:

Vin Scully
Chick Hearn
Dara (first girl I fell in love with - we were five).
Walt Disney
Sandy Koufax
The Beatles
The Bible

That should take me up through high school.

Which is something he'd be screaming for right about now...

That was Paine's talent--not his personal life. As I recall in his later years people tended to avoid him because he smelled bad and was a bore. But in his prime, he sure could write!

Different form of creativity:

Jackson Pollock
Rene Magriette
Ansel Adams
Hugo Ball
Sir Francis Bacon
Albrecht Durer
Marcel Duchamp
Jean Van Iyck
Edouard Manet
Andy Warhol
Mark Rothko
Dorthea Lang

Like I said. Different form of creation, just as big of influence.

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The totally awesome and soul consuming TFH One a Day Reviews.

My biggest influnces are;

Danny Wallace


[b]Hunter S Thompson

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"Life has become immeasurably better since I have been forced to stop taking it seriously."

Satan.

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Under-the-radar Movie Awesomeness.
http://earlsmoviepicks.blogspot.com/

Without whom, my life could be quite different.