12 Secrets- week 1

It’s week 1 of the book discussion that I mentioned in the previous post.  The book is The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women: a portable memtor by Gail McMeekin.  I bought this book last summer and wasn’t thrilled about it.  It had great content but there wasn’t any pictures or colors to keep my focus.  So I was thrilled when Jamie was focusing on this book.  I really want to study it further and get other’s thoughts on it.  I almost didn’t sign up to participate but realized that I was just being scared.  So I’m doing it!  (Hi everyone that came from the group!)

The first secret is acknowledging your creative self.  I feel that I was a creative child.  I loved to do crafts and often saved things from around the house that had potential to be created into something else.  I was signed up for various classes after school and tried screen printing, clay making and painting.  I moved to Massachusetts in 7th grade and that is when it really stopped.  I was in chorus but it was because my friends were.  I hated art class because it was very structured and I cannot draw realistically.  I discovered boys and that was it until I was pregnant with my first child. 

I taught myself to knit from a book.  I never made it further than the skills to make a funny looking scarf though.  I moved to Arizona and had another child.  With this pregnancy I taught myself crochet.  It seemed easier to me and I occasionally made things.  However the weather isn’t conducive to knits so I stopped. 

Life got messy and I didn’t have time to think more about creating and myself.  It wasn’t until I was alone and pregnant again that I starting thinking about what would make me happy.  I started taking classes to get a degree in Interior Design.  I started dating my future husband and he was much more understanding that I needed something to fulfill myself.  Fast forward a couple of years…  I stopped taking classes about halfway through my second year of classes (I was going part time) because it wasn’t creative enough.  It was very technical and structured and nothing like I imagined.  But I learned some of the principles of drawing, perspective, color theory etc. 

All of this to say that I’m still learning to acknowledge my creative self but it is much easier than before.  Now I know what I’m missing and I just need to figure out my method, my way, my style.  I feel like when I became a mother, I couldn’t ignore it any longer.  I was giving away so much of myself that I needed a way to fill myself back up.  I dabbled until I found blogs and realized that other people live this way.  It was okay to think these thoughts and it was normal.  

I no longer feel guilty and selfish for needing to create.  I do need to work on giving myself time (I have a 7 month old) but I have given myself space.  The house we live in now has an office space.  I claimed it for myself and put all my “stuff” in it.  It is a great room and I have consciencely made the effort to call it my studio rather than office. 

I have never considered myself a writer and actually really dislike writing.  I feel that it takes too long to get my thoughts down on paper and make it understandable by others.  But I have acknowledged that I am a writer to some degree.  I have kept a diary since I was 10ish and now write daily (or almost daily) in a journal.  I like that it doesn’t need to be perfect or even in full sentences.  It just has to be me.

Which really leads to me the end of my thoughts.  It doesn’t matter what I’m creating or how I’m creating it.  It justs need to be me.