The Creativity of Children

So this is the post I came to publish yesterday. Rather than post twice in one day I thought I save this for today. It was born from The Write Practice writing prompt from 22nd August - a short free write around the theme - that I liked enough to share. There's an irony to the fact that the next Write Practice blog I read was about creating a platform by sharing your stories. Consider this one plank of that platform if you like.

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The Creativity of Children

It's a simple box, corrugated cardboard, unassuming; but inside is an doorway to world I can't see. In the hands of a child that drab, brown husk is a spaceship, or a racing car, or a fort, a princess castle or a dolls house. It may be empty to me, but not to a child who sees through an imaginative eye. The empty box is a toy in a child's hand, but a dead thing in mine. My head is filled with documents and spreadsheets, with worries and responsibilities. My creativity is shouted down by practicality. A blank sheet of paper and a few pots of paint combine to form an exciting masterpiece for a child, but it stares up at me, threatening me, daring me to try, mocking that would even consider it. A child, so free: It doesn't matter if it's 'right', it doesn't matter if it's 'good', it doesn't even have to be 'acceptable' because these are adult labels for things that make us afraid when we grow up.

Growing up. That thing we think of as an improvement - growing physically, growing in knowledge and experience - but at what cost? Is it really such an improvement? Give me the empty box. Give me the blank paper. Give me the world through a child's eyes.

Free Your Writing

Welcome to the New Year, a time for resolutions (that often fall away by the end of January) and good habits (that often fall away before then). I know that it's a hopeless cliche, but I'm relaunching this blog today. By relaunching, I mean that I'm posting after a big period of not posting. Another New Year's resolution? Blog more? Post once a day, once a week, once a month? No, nothing like that. It just feels right.

Today, inspired by The Write Practice, I indulged in my first free-write of the year. What a joy!

In case you don't already know, free writing is a process that puts a stream of consciousness on the page. You can start with a prompt or just whatever words are in your head, but the point is to write non-stop and unedited for a period of time. Don't type, because typing encourages editing: It's not permanent enough, it can be deleted and re-written on a whim. Handwriting, however, is completely permanent: Once it's there on the page, it's there forever. You can cover it up, you can destroy the page, but you can't separate the ink from the paper. You just place the pen (or pencil) on the page and start writing and keep going; 5, 10 or 15 minutes is fine, or you can aim to fill a number of pages. You can either empty the contents of your head onto the page (literary vomitting) or you can write what's going on around you. Allow your mind to wander and jump from subject to subject. If your mind goes quiet and you find you have nothing to write, just keep going. Write the same word over and over if you have to, or switch to writing about what you can hear or see or smell. Just keep going.

What you end up with is nonsense - it isn't meant to be published - but free writing is a breeding ground for ideas that you didn't even know you had. It frees you from your inner editor and awakens your writer inside. And I had forgotten how much I enjoy it; it's liberating and blessedly easy.

I'll return to tonight's free writing in a day or two and see if there's anything I can develop.

So screw restrictive resolutions that commit us to 'blog once a week', or 'write the first novel by the end of the year', they are good goals and very worthy achievements, but this New Year, with my writing at least, I'm going back to basics. My goal is simply to write something every day, even if it's free writing or some other crap that is never unleashed upon the world.