My Struggles With Creating

“The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.” Mary Oliver

I like stories. A lot. It started with TV shows and movies. Comics books came soon after. I remember pouring over comic book pages before learning to read. When I learned to read, I went from story books to short stories. From short stories to novels. Somewhere along line, just taking it in wasn’t enough. I started creating stuff. It just felt natural. I loved drawing as a child and I still do. Most kids like to draw but I went from drawing pictures of my favorite toys to drawing my own comics on notebook paper for fourteen months. Eventually I moved on to trying to write short stories. The thing is I didn’t stick with it. My attention kept moving on to other things. Life kept getting in the way.

For some reason though, I keep coming back to drawing and writing. The ideas keep coming and I feel the need to do something with them. It’s been happening for as long as I can remember.

When I was seven years old my family moved. New school, no friends yet. It was December and our teacher had us drawing and making Christmas decorations. I was drawing Santa Claus and nutcracker toy soldiers. The other kids noticed. I got requests for drawings. I started making friends.

Art class quickly became my favorite. One day in art class I was trying to draw the Enterprise from Star Trek. The drawing wasn’t coming out right. What my hands were putting down on paper didn’t match the image I had in my head. I voiced my frustration. I was all set to give up. My art teacher stepped in. He said it was fine and gave me some pointers. He encouraged me to keep trying. So I kept going and finished the drawing. Over the years I’ve often thought back on the that day and the lesson that I learned.

It can be a struggle to create. It takes effort to learn from what works and from what doesn’t. It takes effort not to give up. It takes work. It’s easier to order a pizza and binge on Netflix. It takes time and effort to complete things.

Although it can be a struggle to create, I’ve found out that not creating is even more of a struggle.

Next: My Struggles With Creating Part 2