SquarePeg Books

How has your creativity in life evolved since you began writing?

Hmmm…

This is a hard one to answer, because I get squirreled so often by ideas that I think look nifty and “I wanna try it right now!” I’ve always gotten squirreled like that.

There are days when I wish I hadn’t pulled myself off of Rtialin (but that’s story for another day). Of course, I can’t say that I functioned with a ton more focus back then, either. Or maybe I did, but I can’t see it because of the trees in the forest that I’m currently lost in (oooo… metaphor usage…).

I will say that in my writing, when I have character do X as a hobby or something, I will research X, and sometimes even try X.  Sometimes I’ll even *gasp* enjoy doing X and it becomes yet another hobby-thing added to the growing list. This does create some scheduling problems in terms of trying to get things done and the all-too-common thought of “Writing is too hard right now, I’d rather do something else.”

Generally, “something else” is only less hard because I’m not trying to create convincing characters or logical world rules, just something that satisfies my personal aesthetic (lemme tell ya, strategically placed trim can hide a lot of oopsies and even make it look like you intended it to be there in the first place).

I’ve sewn costumes, handstitched books back into their bindings, made jewelry, learned to knit, picked up fiber spinning, dyeing and weaving, archery and making my own wood arrows, and a whole host of other activities that are creative in ways different, but related to writing because I insert them into the writing at some point (I’m still not certain I will ever understanding gardening – making plants do the growing thing, especially outdoors, seems to elude me).

A great deal of this ends up in the writing at one point or another.

Check out the Insecure Writer’s Support Group to see more writers dish about their concerns, their solutions to various problems, or just general ochophobia.