Sometimes, I still feel that way.
I love to write, which is certainly a creative pursuit, but that isn’t the slam-dunk proof of creativity that I wish it was. I’m the first to admit that non-fiction is my comfort zone. It’s the sort of writing that aligns best with how I think. I sit and have a think. I take pieces of different ideas and mold them into a whole, and if I do it well, the reader goes, “A-hah! She’s totally bang on. That’s exactly what’s happening in the world right now.”
Alternatively, they go, “I hate this idea, I want my current idea to be right, but I’ll have to think about it. She might have a point. Ouch.”
The second one is how I gained a bit of a reputation as a rabble-rouser, but it also lead to some of the most gratifying moments I ever had as a writer. Since I also wrote primarily (though far from entirely) for a Catholic audience, I had the rare joy of knowing that something I wrote impacted someone for their spiritual good. How cool is that?
And yet, even though I lived in my comfort zone as a writer, that part of me that demanded I write the stories of my heart wouldn’t be silenced. I want to impact people for their spiritual good. I want my fiction to glorify God, too. But the whole process of it, the way of being creative that fiction entails? I felt like a total fraud.
I know other writers, other writers that are not frauds. I grew up with some of them, the sorts of people who were making up stories since they could talk, and who lived and breathed daydreams. I’m not that person. Okay, I love to read and have been in love with books for as long as I can remember. I grew up in the country, making up pretend stories as I played Little House on The Prairie or mermaids or lions with my younger sisters. I’m still very into dragons, and I want to learn how to do traditional archery like a fantasy princess.
But I’ve never done the rest. I’ve never been very good at telling my little ones stories on the spot. I don’t have endless story ideas waiting to be written (coincidentally, I just saw this post today by a blog I follow. This level of creativity is INSANE to me!). In fact, finding A Good Story Idea is by far the hardest part of the writing process for me. I think I have a few, but it’s like drawing water from a stone.
That is, it would be without the Divine assistance.
That’s the realization I had recently that has allowed me to look around awkwardly, cheeks burning, as I declare, “Oh, yeah, me? I’m a pretty creative person.”
(I mean, in my head, at least. I’m not sure I could say it out loud. Scary stuff.)
But I mean it, I really do. I am a creative person, and my children are the proof.
My husband and I created these little human beings, and that’s a heck of a lot more insane than creating a fictional world out of thin air. But when I “created” my daughter, I wasn’t alone in it. I was doing the much easier part of the whole thing. I was merely cooperating with God.
When I sit down to work on my fantasy novel draft, I try to remember that. It’s not the writing I’m comfortable with. It’s much scarier than that. Though I can and do draw from many different worlds others have created, there’s no escaping that blankest bit of blank pages, where I have to root around in my own head for A Good Idea and make something from close to nothing.
But it’s the kind of creativity I know I can do, and that makes all the difference. I labored in creating both of my children. It brought me to the limit of what my body and even my soul could handle, but I did handle it, because God was there. I was cooperating. I was not alone.
