The Enchanted Forest

When I was a kid, I was always envious of my friends that lived in the country, surrounded by trees run through with interesting paths that I was certain would lead to some magical land.  I thought for  certain that if I lived near a forest, wonderful things would happen to me.  Don’t get my wrong, my house was pretty cool too, and my overactive creative imagination had plenty to work with.  For instance, our swing set doubled as a circus tent or (depending on the day) a mystery club hideout with secret entrances (modeled after the hideout in a series of young adult mystery books, the title of which escapes me and Google is of no help).  I used to crawl underneath the monster honeysuckle bushes that lined the fence around our pool and imagined an entire village existed under there.  I could go on, but I’m afraid you might already think I’m a little nuts.

As I got older, my imagination remained active, but I put it towards more productive uses – i.e., homework assignments.  However, I continued to love mystery novels and stories that truly drew you in and made you feel as if you were really a part of what was going on.  For instance, I love Harry Potter.  I read those stories over and over again. (Yeah, I’m in my 30s, so what?)  My fascination with a thick grove of trees hasn’t waned, either.  I can walk through the woods and my thoughts start running in overdrive.  I feel like I could write an entire novel based upon the feelings, sights, and sounds that wash over me in a period of just five minutes.

When I was a senior in high school, I went to visit my step-sisters in San Diego.  I fell in love with the city almost immediately, and while I loved the beaches and ocean (of course), they took me to these unbelievable forests with paths that led to enormous, ancient trees with rope swings.  To this day, I can remember what those woods looked like and how I felt as we explored them (without having to look at the pictures, which I have plenty of).  I vowed during that trip that I would move to San Diego after college and frequent those paths.

Now, fifteen years later, I still live in the midwest, I rarely visit our state forests, and my imagination is stifled.  Where am I going with this, you might be asking.  Over the past four days I have driven over 1000 miles for work (no joke, 1000 miles, in a car, by myself, in four days).  I had a lot of time alone with my thoughts.  Most of those thoughts were negative, angry, self-deprecating.  I’d decided that I was not going to blog again until I was in a better frame of mind because no one likes to read depressing, negative blather.  I mean, I certainly don’t.  I was feeling hopeless.

Then I had an idea.  If I didn’t have anything positive to say, then I would start writing posts about things that happened or that I saw during the day but write them as short stories.  Maybe fictionalize them a bit.  Maybe they will remain individual stories.  Maybe they will morph into an actual novel.  And maybe, just maybe, I’ll find inspiration while taking a hike through the forest.

Creative Minds Want to Know

I sat down about 45 minutes ago to start writing.  My husband is working late, so I wanted to get all of my blogging out of the way before he got home (so that he could actually use the computer this evening).  But I started looking at some of the blogs I subscribe to, checked out the blogs of people who had left comments on those blogs, and before I knew it I was engrossed in so many witty and insightful posts.  There are so many talented writers out there.

I have been thinking about this post for a while, and reading other people’s posts was a great way to get the words flowing.  I believe that everyone who undertakes the challenge of writing a blog would, on some level, describe themselves as creative.  It doesn’t matter what you write about – your life, video games, food, computer software, etc. – you must have some creativity to make your writings relevant and interesting.

I started wondering how other bloggers found their creativity, how it developed and was fostered.  I have always considered myself to be creative, and then I started wondering why that was.  How did I find my creativity?  I am certain that it had to do with my parents.   I have always loved books, and their ability to take me to places I would never have otherwise known.  Before I could read, I would look at the pictures in books and make up stories to go along with them.  My mom likes to tell people how I was talkative and outgoing at a young age, how I liked to make things up.  She and my dad encouraged that behavior.  Without that encouragement, who knows how I would have turned out.

I think creativity is something that has to be exercised on a regular basis.  While I have always described myself as creative, about a year or so ago I realized that I really wasn’t exercising my creative muscles.  I stopped to think about the last time I had created something, and I couldn’t remember.  I had become so consumed with my job misery that I wasn’t using my free time to do anything that I loved.  As a result, I was losing my creative edge.  The one thing I felt set me apart from other boring lawyers, and it was slipping away!

I thought then about starting a blog, but I was too scared.  So, I just starting writing down thoughts in a notebook (I still have them), and tried to focus on positive things that happened during each day.  I started taking more pictures (although at the time I still had my small point-and-shoot).  I learned how to knit.  I bought some fabric to make curtains for our kitchen nook windows (unfortunately that project fell by the wayside and the fabric is still sitting upstairs next to the sewing machine…oh, well, the windows aren’t going anywhere).

I started to feel better about my creative muscles after that.  It felt good to point to something and say, “I did that.  That was me.”  Then I got my new DSLR camera, started my photo blog, and eventually started this blog.  Strangely, I do feel better, happier, more at peace, when I set aside part of the day to create something.  Some days it is hard to find the time, I feel rushed, and end up feeling like I have not put forth my best work.  But at least I did something, and I can be proud about that.

Just out of curiosity, do you have a specific memory of realizing you were a creative mind?  What do you do to exercise your creativity?  Other creative minds want to know…