What's In Your Mirror?

With school starting up next week and a whole new focus beginning in my writing class, I got out my notes from last time and reviewed what I learned. Or at least what I wrote down in my notes. Whether I actually learned it all or not will soon become evident as I take the second semester of Imaginative Writing. As I begin this class, I am looking in the mirror and asking: What's changed in my writing?

I believe it's important to evaluate our growth occasionaly, to ensure that our writing doesn't stay static. If I'm not moving forward or at least stepping to the side on a different path, then I must question the effort I put in to create a better outcome. Has my writing improved? Have my stories become more alive with the characters and details that surround them?

One of the things that I know has changed is my level of courage. Or my dimishing fear. Like the lion in the mirror, I see myself beginning to roar back at my kitten meow of last year. Having the courage to explore different avenues available to me has opened up new possibilities for me. Besides self-publishing my books, I've had the courage to submit my manuscripts to a publisher of ebooks. Allowing my work to be critiqued has been the hardest growth for me. I'm learning how to develop a thick skin so I don't crumble when someone doesn't like my work. Now I can ask why? And how can I improve and sharpen my characters and plots.

I look forward to getting back to the grind. If I was thirty years younger I wouldn't be so hard on myself. But I feel the urgency of wanting to get the stories out that are inside, just like a painter would want to paint all the pictures that are in their mind's eye. And so I leave this post with these questions for you. Are you continuing to improve in your writing? Has your story become sharper and clearer as you write? Are you focused so each chapter reflects a mirror of what you want to say?

I for Imagination

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A writer's imagination is what keeps the stories flowing out of each of us. Webster's dictionary says: an act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or not previously known or experienced. Creativy ability.

How do we create something in our mind that is not previously known or experienced? Where does it come from? I am considered a creative person in my sphere, and have been asked by others: where did that story come from? My standard answer has usually been: I imagined it and wrote it down. But I've always asserted that I had to have some kind of point of reference to dream up a new character or idea, but after thinking about Webster's definition, I am changing my mind. Issac Asimov, Jules Vern and many others, thought up whole new worlds that defy the imagination and push the thinking into whole new areas. Why are we, as writers, any different? We are capable of journeying into those unknown places of our imagination and creating a whole new idea. How?

"And there is nothing new under the sun." Taking what we have seen and heard, we can filter it through our own special way of looking at things and create something with a new twist, a special way of looking at it and maybe even a whole new character that surprises the senses. We are unique individuals, therefore, we see things in our own unique way. With this ability, we are capable of re-interpereting what we see and hear into incredible new ideas. Is it actually a mental image of something not present to the senses or not previously known or experienced? Yes. After we re-invent the wheel, it may not look like a wheel anymore. It is our creative ability that has seen this new image or character in our mind and we weave a story that is fresh and exciting.

I want to thank artist Loretta Stephenson (Art By Retta) for sharing her thoughts about creative expression with me. She is an artist with unique creative ability and design.