Prompting Yourself? To Write 43: What Creativity Means To Me
Last monday my friend Jo Ann, writer of the Chronicles blog, had a great post, with the subject of the essay and poem being creativity. She asked her readers to consider doing their own blog post on the subject and so I spent some time on tuesday and wednesday thinking and writing, while eating lunch at a pair of local fast food joints.
Creativity means the power, challenge and talent to write and somehow, some way, developing it.
Creativity means reaching a fork in the road that is the journey of my life.
Creativity means writing and praying a Creative Writer's Prayer and having faith in one's abilities...
1. Creativity means learning to drive a car, before I was a year old, in order to impress a girl (I've got pictures to prove it!).
2. Creativity means early learning, via Romper Room, Bozo the Clown and Hobo Kelly.
3. Creativity means having my imagination stirred by a mother who read to me, then encouraged me to read for myself.
4. Creativity means an award-winning elementary school rock and gem science project.
5. Creativity means being a white kid standing before an audience of black students in the school auditorium, and performing MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech for Black History Month, in elementary school.
6. Creativity means taking up the violin in the 4th grade and sticking with it all the way through the end of High School.
7. Creativity means writing my 1st story in elementary school and finding such joy in it that creative writing of all sorts, from stories to book reports, became integral parts of who?I was as a student in school all the way through college.
8. Creativity means waking up in the middle of the night and swearing I saw the closet door open and shut, on its own accord, in my bedroom.
9. Creativity means seeing a giant red globe fly across sky on a cloudy afternoon, with a schoolmate as witness to this UFO.
10. Creativity means having my young imagination stirred by the books I read and the TV shows and movies i?watched growing up.
11. Creativity means having the courage to try to teach my 4th grade classmates how to play a game called Danish (A team game sort of like baseball, but without the bat, or a pitcher, and using a tennis ball)?and not having to say I'm sorry for not entirely succeeding.
12. Creativity means having my young imagination stirred by Vin Scully, Jerry Doggett and Chick Hearn to such an extent tht I'd immitate them while tossing a tennis ball against a wall, or shooting hoops alone.
13. Creativity means learning to enjoy speaking in front of others in class, or in dramatic skits.
14. Creativity means teaching myself, at an early age, to safelywalk and read a book, or magazine, at the same time and live to tell about it.
15. Creativity meand teaching myself to navigate every mass transit system from LA to San Bernardino and Brea to San Diego, from the time I was a teen, finally trusted by my mom to go out on my own.
16. Creativity means erasing paragraphs, even whole pages, in an early Star Trek "History" book and re-writing things much more to my liking.
17. Creativity means dressing up, at 16, as Miss America 1976, for an amusing 1 mile walk,?escorting my young sisters?to the Girl Scout halloween party, that embarrassed the hell out of the little darlings, freaked out the Den Mother when she opened the door, and for which, I think, the sisters have yet to completely forgive me. (Yes, I DO have a photo laying around somewhere)
18. Creativity means teaching my teen self to cook my own breakfast of scrambled? egg and bacon/sausage sandwiches.
19. Creativity means having one's imagination stired by spending a day in the home of legendary Star Trel Fan and author?Bjo Trimble (The woman who saved Star Trek)?in Los Angeles.
20. Creativity means writing a creative story as an assignment for a criminal justice class in college: Elay Ca. Police Interrogation, in 27 Year Old Murder Case, Uncovered
21. Creativity means building a large and varied book and comics, then video, then classical CD collections and eventually finding the best ways to give them all up by the time I was 40, because I needed the money.
22. Creativity means starting up a?new, but just as varied? book collection a couple of years after? kissingall that had gone before good-bye.
23. Creativity means spending 17 years working in bookstores, finding different, entertaining, easy to understand, ways to display the merchandise on shelves and tables for customers to explore.
24. Creativity means finding new, different and unique magazines, books, videos and other merchandize to interest customers.
25. Creativity means finding ways to persuade customers that such merchandise was worth shelling out their hard hearned money for.
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26. Creativity means writing a letter to the editor of the local paper, as a teen, and pissing off half the citizens of Pomona with my support of the police dept helicopter patrol.
27. Creativity means later turning this writing talent into a collection of other such letters, in my teens, 20's and 30's, including ones that got published in the LA Times, and American Spectator magazine.
28. Creativity means turning an interest in comics, in my 20's and 30's into a chance to see over 60 letters to the edtor published, mostly in DC Comics and one letter, in particular, in passionate response to the Death of Groo graphic novel, get special attention by the? artist and storyteller, Sergio Arregones.
29. Creativity means finding a way to be among those in line to get an autograph from Frank Miller, for Dark Knight #1 and still make it back to work, in time,?all the way from West Hollywood.
30. Creativity means being in the right place at the right time, in a line for autographs from Sergio Arregones, that I found myself being bodily lifted by him, from behind, so he could reach his seat at the table.\
31. Creativity means discovering what crock pots and blenders are good for, though?I still use the 2nd more than the 1st.
32. Creativity means having failed for years in getting a Star Tek Fanzine subscription, trying one more time by writing an essay, failing yet again to get a subscription.
33. Creativity means discovering, a few years later (1990), that the essay had not only been published in the fanzine, but then included in a published book, #15 of the Best of Trek Anthology, thus turning me into a published writer, unpaid, but published none the less!
( A Google of "Confessions of a Trekaholic" turns up something interesting, these days: Some, um, enterprising writers have written articles and even at least 1 book, with that title, since my piece was published. :-D )
34. Creativity means taking up the practice of long bike rides, in my 30's, creating my own routes to enjoy.
35. Creativity means taking up photography in my 30's, lugging a camera along on my bike rides? trips to zoos, beaches, amusement parks?and museums, and to Las Vegas and TJ, with family.
36. Creativity means getting a computer at age 38 and having one of the 1st things I do, when I finally venture online, be to write a fake story "by my cat", to introduce myself to an online community.
37. Creativity means having the response to what I did be such that it inspired me to do similar posts, thus re-igniting a long dormant creativity and changing my lonely life forever and in ways I never could have imagined.
38. Creativity means writing things for others to read and enjoy, inspired by the people met online and in person and on trips to Phoenix and Chicago, those 1st 3 years online.
39.? Creativity means disovering a talent for poetry, in 2002, inspired by a writer's group led by a rabid socialist and having that? talent added to my storytelling repertoire.
40. Creativity means being encouraged to take those writing skills, adding an interest in commentary and journalism and joining the? newly born worldwide online community of the Blogosphere in 2002.
41. Creativity means a decde of varied online writing, on 4 blogs (2 still active) that, while not read by many on a daily basis, allowed me to build a modest reputation in a couple of niches.
42. Creativity means writing pieces that have educated, informed, entertained and amused, annoyed and angered, sometimes all in the same blog post.
43. Creativity means being interesting enough to be interviewed by the local paper, linked to and mentioned by otehr, more well known and respected writers, many times over the years.
44. Creativity means being quoted in a book and asked to be a regular reviewer of the performances of a major symphony orchestra.
45. Creativity means being invited to attend the debut screening of a cycling?documentary and encouraged to write a review of the film.
46. Creativity means being invited to speak at REI and the oldest bicycle club west of the Mississippi, in Riverside.
47. Creativity means having??my work praised by a pulitzer prize winning journalist, a prominent cleric and the famous writer of a song I did a parody of, among others.
48. Creativity means turning the cat you rescued as a kitten and introduced on that old message board, in 1998, into my muse, giving "voice" to him online, first in that community, then with me as a co-blogger and finally on a blog of "his" own in 2010.
49. Creativity means recognizing in my cat blogging, by 2008, a talent for a special type of evolving niche blogging and deciding, by the start of 2010, that maybe I could do a lot more with it than any of the otehr blogging I was doing.
50. Creativity means having the courage to perform at Open Mic Poetry readings.
51. Creativity means finding a 2nd muse in the young female kitten found on my doorstep one night in the summer of 2010.
52. Creativity means having the courage to put a few simple videos on youtube.
53. Creativity means learning? to create 2 more complex videos for posting on youtube.
54. Creativity means having the courage to move to new cities 3 times and change jobs 3 times, from 1998 to 2005.
55. Creativity means writing?Nikita's "memoirs" online, losing all but a small portion of it and not forgetting it even after more than a decade, because I am trying to talk myself into tackling it again.
56. Creativity means not forgetting a series of stories within a story, first written in 2003, but?not?touched since 2007, because?I am?trying to talk? myself into tackling it again.
57. Creativity means not forgetting another start to a story, written to remember a beloved cat, but not touched in years, because I am trying to talk myself into tackling it again.
Continued in What Creativity Means To Me 2
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Source: http://www.madmacedonian.com/2012/08/pytw-43-what-creativity-means-to-me.html
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