“The more virgin our eyes are, the more we have to say” – Orson Welles

For writers and artists, I think it’s easy to get caught up in the idea that, to give your work any value, you need to piggyback on the greatness or genius of established authors whose works have been significant and are now in the public domain. What this really shows is a fear of owning your own voice, opinions, and ideas.

Rather than dig through the public domain looking for works to repurpose, maybe you should step back and try to have some of your own ideas. What you are really seeking is a sort of security blanket—protection from failure and validation that your efforts won’t be wasted—but art never makes such guarantees.

I have personally spent too much time thinking about the public domain. That is time that would be better spent just making works of my own and trying to live with them. I think we are all afraid that our ideas are not very good. It’s easier to parrot the words of those canonical geniuses who have walked before us and pray that some of their greatness will rub off on us. We beg them to lend us their authority. But I’m afraid that is the coward’s path. It’s not the path of the true artist. Sorry.

Take Hollywood as an example. It’s kind of rare that a director’s first big movie is an adaptation. A lot of directors hit the ground running with an original story. And when a popular director adapts a classic work, we appreciate it only insofar as the director brings their own new vision to the reinterpretation.

So ultimately, you cannot run from yourself.