There is always a time before we realize we have an ability to make something out of nothing, to change the ordinary into the special. Whether it is with words or paints or needle, something prompted us to try. There was a moment in our life that said, “Hey, look what I can do.”
My moment came when I was around 10 and playing pretend in my room. For some reason, I decided I had to write a poem…or was it the pretend character who was the sudden poet. I’m not sure, but in my mind…yes, I remember this clearly…my character wrote this little poem for her “friends,” reading it now, it could have many meanings. Decide for yourself what this childhood poem means, to you:
Thy Power is in thy
Master’s hand
He does with it
As he pleases
He may destroy
He may help
Or he may just see
Another way
Mind you, I may have been playing vampire.
Prior to this writing, I read. Boy, did I read. I couldn’t get enough books. Luckily, my parents never said no to books.
I also like drawing. I use to draw ‘fashion’ girls, now my daughter is doing the same thing and I’ve never told her about my own drawings. I drew square and rectangle houses, something I did share with my child. All during my high school years, I took art class. I wasn’t very good, but I tried and I enjoyed. I still take pencil to paper and I’ve improved.
I’ve also discovered I enjoy photography. I always took pictures, at the family gatherings, but over the last few years I’ve discovered photos of texture and emotions and creative questionings…who or what lives in that tree trunk. The strength and power of a thundering sky. The unshared knowledge in an animal’s eye.
We’ve all started somewhere, at sometime, and have grown from there; maybe we’ve also forgotten why we started. Maybe we’re still doing something that has long since lost its shine. Allow yourself to think back to when you started, when you first remember picking up your creative craft and running with it. Where are you now?
Chris,
I don't remember when I discovered writing but I remember that I was an avid reader as a child. I remember thinking "I want to do this." My parents too ever discouraged my reading. I tried starting a school newspaper for my but the principal really put a stop to that! From there I was telling my siblings and the neighborhood kids made up fairytales.
I'm a way back book junky and have written poetry for family and friends for years, but it never occurred to me to want to be a writer, especially not a writer of fiction.
Poetry is still my first love — I started taking my poetry writing more seriously when I was a finalist in an online contest I'd entered on a whim (it was Christmas vacation and kids were out of the house, giving me free access to the computer)
— but I stumbled into fiction writing after the first Muse online writers conference ..
now I've written a book that will be published in 2012 and am working on a second {shakes head}.
Peggy
Hi,
Thanks for stopping by and sharing. What I've found is the more I thought I knew about writing the less I really did know, but, boy, am I learning.
I'm starting to wonder where my photography could take me, too.
I'm was a reading fanatic. Read everything. Still do. My biggest problem is that I can never bring just one item. I have to have a book, a magazine, paper and pen (and pencil, and a highlighter, and maybe even a few more pens of different colors). I still make lists like my life depends on it. I loved to write. But I was always afraid of being judged, so I never wrote anything in my mind. I would make lists and/or write what I was reading. Now days, I don't mind sharing what's on my mind. I still have times where I'm afraid to send out my work, but I keep pecking away (slowly).