A Creative Journey...

to a destination of joy

A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a quip and worried to death by a frown on the right man's brow - Charles Brower

It's 1961, and a little six-year-old girl sits in the middle of her class. She loves her beautiful teacher. Today Miss is wearing a sleeveless floral dress tightly tucked at the waist, belted to emphasize, flared skirt supported by layers of tulle petticoats. She has short black hair neatly tucked behind her ears, fashionable clip-on earrings, cats-eye black glasses, and stilettos that click-clack on the classroom floor as she moves around the room. Movie star glamorous.

Today's activity is practising letters. A sheet with dotted line letters is given out by the class monitor. She starts to practice but has trouble keeping her pencil on the line. She has an idea. If she uses a crayon, her favourite bright pink one, it is easier to cover the dotted line. Off she goes; the dotted line disappears like magic. She feels a little smug and proud of her creative idea.

Not so Miss Glamorous, who admonishes her severely in front of the whole class for being so silly. Little girl is so hurt; she was so excited about her idea.

Well, she unconsciously decides right there and then never to go outside the lines again, never to engage a creative thought again and she didn't. She’d use her intellect and leave any sort of creativity behind in that small room.

She exceeded intellectually, could solve any maths problem intuitively, and topped her classes easily. Art, music, and writing felt way too scary.

Fast forward to many years later and I choose a very thinking career. I become an accountant. Don't get me wrong. I still love the aesthetic charm of a balanced set of books. The precision of numbers and data in the right place is so pleasing to the eye.

However, it has always been 'in the lines', a set format, black and white, safe, never to attract the ire of the creative critic.

Since retiring, I have been determined to follow a more creative path. It's taken a mighty effort to shake loose from the structure of the 'lines'.

I decide writing is probably my thing. It suits my introverted nature and my passion for travel. It's a take anywhere kinda hobby. Have laptop, will travel. Great idea.

Now, to just find that instruction book on how to be creative, how to write. After all, you have to do it right. There has to be a structure, and definitive steps to being a writer. I borrow basic books on essay structure from my school-teacher sister and quietly worked through writing exercises that kids do these days. I never remember doing these when I was at school. It was expected that we just knew how to write essays.

I read about writers who from childhood have written every day. It flows out of them. They write about their day; they write stories; they write to make sense of their world. I couldn't understand this phenomenon. When I wrote it was carefully structured, took days to complete a piece that still felt stilted, and unnatural.

In a multi-year search for my creativity, I finally discovered a couple of little exercises that resonated. I committed to a daily journal practice. After all, no one would ever read it. Years ago, I tried the standard 'morning pages' type of journalling but that felt stupid. Writing pages of drivel (sorry freewriting) every morning wasn't what I had signed up for. I have exercise books full of it. I worry about someone finding it when I die and wondering what the hell that was.

Then I found writing prompts of which there are thousands out there. That makes more sense to me. 30 Days of Writing Prompts is my current exercise and 365 Days of Writing Prompts is queued for 2023. Don't start with a blank page. Too overwhelming. So far, so good.

YouTubers I follow, who have committed to the practice, say daily journalling changed their lives. Really? I'll let you know.

From my latest YouTube discovery, R.C Walden, the Harry Potter of YouTubers, I also found an exercise about taking an event from my day and writing it as a story. I could use mundane little events from my life, like watching someone's dog run across the road and nearly get squished or pumping petrol for the first time in 7 years. If I run out of those I'll have to go looking for interesting events out there in the world to tell 'my diary' about. That can't hurt and it could build up a series of life stories to leave my children and grandchildren.

Still don't have to show anybody my work. Still safe.

Emboldened, I step it up a notch.

I nervously join a weekly writer’s group.

And I commit to publishing a Substack column weekly. It's been a stop-start thing as I put myself out there and then put my head back under the covers for a bit.

Lately, though, a crack has appeared, a break in those 'lines' that kept me contained all these years. I saw an escape route and I went for it.

At some point, I found that I could write relatively freely and flowingly without structure, heaven forbid. But more than that I have found joy in my creations. I can sit back and say to myself 'I did that’. I like what I have done without needing approval from anyone else to say it’s been done correctly. No red ink (or green auditor ink if you are an older accountant!). It's liberating.

I have discovered the utter joy of wordsmithing. Anthony Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See is my favourite degustation of exquisite words and language to be savoured slowly again and again.

Bill Bryson tells me that writing stories about every day, but relatable events appeals to a wide audience. Storytelling seems to be innate to humans. We love good stories and storytellers. I like that idea.

There's also strong evidence that higher levels of openness to new experiences, especially intellectual and creative activities help us to age well.

National Institute on Aging research also finds that participation in the arts may improve the health, well-being, and independence of older adults.

Good enough for me to spend the rest of my life engaging in life, putting pen to paper to tell stories and experience the joy of personal creativity.

Every artist writes her own autobiography - Havelock Ellis