Just a few weeks ago, I was in Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territories of Australia. One of the reasons for being there was to check out some of the Aboriginal art that can be found on rocks in the area. There’s something both stark and lyrical about these images, as seen in this one depicting spirit people hunting. And part of what I liked was that the painting tradition has always been one in which artists are happy to work over the creations of their ancestors, as you can see in this image that was reworked in the 1960s.

There’s a non-preciousness about that attitude, of wiping the slate clean when you start, that appeals to me a lot. But it goes hand in hand with a respect for what has gone before. Stylistic changes are introduced, for instance X-ray style depictions of the internal organs of animals, but the narrative concerns are essentially the same. Art — and Aboriginal art is very much allied to storytelling — depicts the stories of the tribe. And those are fairly constant over time: relationships, hunting, noteworthy accomplishments. Layers of these images can be found on rock surfaces where Aboriginal people have gathered, dating back centuries and longer.

As with Aboriginal art, so with screenwriting. One project I’ve always been fond of, a science fiction epic I mapped out in a feverish week when I was tired of writing low budget naturalistic short films, is arguably redundant now that Avatar has stolen its thunder. At any rate, were my idea to be brought to the screen, people would inevitably compare it with Cameron’s epic. And I got there first…but that doesn’t matter. He got an actual film made, whereas all I have is a few pages of notes. Hey ho. So now I can develop my story in new ways that differentiate it from his (it’s not that similar, but…), or decide to devote my attention to something else.

Something else I liked in Australia was a boho gypsy band I caught in an artsy place that sold crepes and beer to support the nightly live music they showcased. Bizerka are a wonderful live experience, with accordion and cello and violin and guitar and orange box drums clattering away to amazing effect. Their music draws on Greek, Romanian and Russian traditions, and an old Greek man danced with his vivacious companion with delight on his face and in his feet, swigging red wine as he did.

What made Bizerka beautiful was their abundant passion for what they did. They loved playing, and that joy exuded from every performer and every tune, and in the nonsensical tales that the accordionist told between the songs, about how they’d been arrested in Russia for three months, and only learned one lousy tune in the prison. All lies, but it fit the fabric of their style and made the evening all the more delightful.

It never once occurred to me to question whether the musicians were representatives of the cultures whose musics they played. Authenticity was apparent in every note: Bizerka are part of a living tradition, in the same way that I aspire to write thrillers that people speak of in the same breath as ones that Hitchcock made and Bogart and Pacino dazzled in, or dramas that draw from the same well as Orson Welles and Kurosawa and Paul Thomas Anderson.

I have many wishes for 2010, but if I have a wish for other writers and filmmakers it is this: never mind what your influences are, but respect them whatever they are. And find a way to imbue your own concerns and fascinations and experiences with the scripts you write and the films you make. Stay true to yourself, learn who to listen to and when to turn a deaf ear, and allow your inner compass to take you forward to the future, in the certain knowledge that the journey will be a precarious one at times. It’s that edge that lets you know you’re alive, and an audience can scent that in everything you do, and will seek it out time and again, from you or whoever else provides that vital quality. The best way not to let them down is to not let yourself down.