Transcending Your Influences?

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

In a recent discussion with Serdar, the idea of writer’s “transcending their influences” came up. You know the idea – to go beyond your influences into something your own, avoid their limits or being derivative, etc. For some reason, it made me uncomfortable.

My discomfort told me there was something to analyze here. Why did the idea of “transcending one’s influences” as a writer give me that...