How are YOU creative?
You do know you are, don’t you, you glorious Substack Writers and Readers?
When my first book was published, at age 45, no one was more surprised than this unremarkable kid from Kansas. That book split my life down the middle … before mindmapping, I was a paid employee, an accountant… after mindmapping, I was self-employed … an entrepreneur, a marketer, a “creative,” and, ay güey, a writer!, the dream I had carried since childhood.
However, I still didn’t recognize creativity as being a part of me. I began teaching corporate creativity workshops and always told people, “You are creative … everyone is creative.” And, yet, that little voice in my head whispered, “Except you, you are the exception to the rule.”
It took years for that little voice to back off, and, to this day, it still sometimes sings its siren song, telling me I’m not creative enough.
Substack is Creativity Central
Whether you’re receiving this as a reader or a writer, you are now part of Substack, an ecosystem which unleashes creativity. Here, Writers serving their muses, carry the light of their unique selves into the world to inspire Readers, who go on to inspire their own worlds.
One of the things I am most grateful for is being a part of this generous community of writers and readers. In this time when the world desperately needs the gratitude and creativity of each of us, I have a question for you …
How are you expressing your own creativity?
Please don’t let that ugly little voice put a basket over your own creative gifts, which can show up in a thousand ways, from how you raise your children to painting rocks for your garden; from reporting on political crises around the world to speaking out at a school board meeting. Creativity is bigger than art or writing or dance or music; it is the bringing of your whole self to whatever you do.
Please share how you bring your creative self … your light … to your own world.
And, in case this is a difficult question for you, here’s the saddest song I know, from one of our lost-too-soon gifted storytellers, Harry Chapin: Flowers Are Red. If it makes you weep, we are kin.
So, once again, how are you using all the colors of your own rainbow?
Writing every day here has been both shocking and enlightening. I had no idea this much creativity was going to come out, but I am very much going with the flow, trying to ride that wave.
On of my hobbies is cross stitching. I picked it up shortly before The Bug hit in '20. It's very therapeutic to stab fabric with a sharp pointy object!