I've never considered myself very creative. My imagination is seriously lacking and I'm not sure I remember a time when it wasn't. Was it a loss of innocence, is everyone born with a natural imagination?
The most I remember as a child is playing out the scenes from our favorite video games like Legend of Zelda. In college, I had the hardest time coming up with concepts and subjects for my papers. I'd ask my sister, even my mother for ideas (and if you knew my relationship with my mother, you'd know I was seriously reaching). I'd even google written papers for something, for an idea, for a concept. Once I had an idea, I could never figure out where to take it, where it should lead. When I tried to be clever, I was obvious and juvenile, getting called out in class by the professor (though, bless his heart, he didn't use my name...I just blushed inwardly in humiliation). I would tell this crazy story with a perfect ending (I'm a big fan of happy endings), only to have the character wake up and it all be a dream. It was shameful at best. The only stories I could tell easily were real ones, things I'd experienced, things that actually happened. Even then, I'd use aliases to keep identities secret, and I would get confused and constantly have to re-read the beginning of the story to remember what name I gave to each person. I remember once having to make a cheat sheet and use it to double check my paper because I had interchanged the names of a couple so-called "characters" repeatedly.
When I would turn in a paper, I wasn't even sure if it was any good and I secretly feared I would be found out, so I wrote non-fiction for my fiction class and fiction for my non-fiction class. I just haven't ever done well writing non-fiction, though it is my favorite to read. One would think with the incredible number of books I've read in my life that I'd at least have a clue, even if it meant copying ideas or style, but alas, no. The editing of the papers, now that comes much more naturally. I need an artist to write, then I can make it pretty, I can polish it until it shines. But creating coherence isn't art just because I say it is.
"I am not responsible for this shattered tapestry, everything was painted upon me. The shadow of a broken past compromised my innocence. Now I'm left with dots that don't connect." ~ Sara Haze, Colored On Me
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