The Short Answer with Cam Lind
April 2020
Writer and student Cam Lind debuts our new series “The Short Answer” where we ask writers, thinkers, artists, and creative makers of all styles what they make, what makes them, and what they want to remake.
Now, I write beyond what sits in front of me.
What do you make?
Cam Lind: Most of the time, I make stories. They can be big, small, important, silly, fiction, reality, or anything in between. I started making stories before I could write, constructing tableaus on the stairs with my McDonalds toys. I would fill notebooks with scribbles and drawings describing the scenes that I put together in my head. When I learned to write, I started with essays. Summaries of Wikipedia pages and profiles of fictional famous people filled the pages of my notebooks and later, the memory of my computer. Now, I write beyond what sits in front of me. Thinking outside the reaches of my everyday life and my own experiences has led me to craft stories that, with the help from workshops in class, are the ones that I am the most proud of. One thing that hasn’t changed is my love of Wikipedia for its wealth of story ideas.
What makes you?
Cam Lind: I used to think my life was too comfortable to write about. I grew up in a suburb of Chicago, went to public school, and hung out with my friends on the weekends. There wasn’t much that could pop the bubble I grew up in. What I hadn’t realized until recently, though, is that the mundane is so ingrained in my mind that I am forced to think outside of it when I write. My own head is so much more interesting than the world around me, and that contrast pushes me to explore every corner of it. I take the things I find in there and put them into my characters, use them to drive my plot, and fold them into the story to make it uniquely mine. So, the one thing that I always thought would be my biggest setback has turned out to be my biggest inspiration.
What would you remake?
Cam Lind: If I could, I would remake the country’s perception of the arts. It is so important to foster artistic talent in kids, and I am grateful to my parents for encouraging me at such a young age, but there is so much more pressure put on kids to be good at math and science. Of course these are important, but creation is what makes people happy, it is what drives people to be their best. It is almost impossible to remake a whole culture surrounding such a looming topic, but every inch the scales are pushed more towards a balanced view of the arts and STEM fields, the better off we will be as a society.
