Let Your Creativity Flow: A Short Retrospective

When I was in college, I secretly wanted to pursue a creative degree. Graphic design, interior design, photography; it changed a lot, literally like every week. But I never thought it was a real possibility. My practical and realistic mind always beat out my imaginative and artistic heart.

In all honesty, I didn’t think I had what it took. I’ve always been a curious and imaginative person with some artistic talent. But I was afraid I wasn’t creative enough, that my well of unique ideas would run dry and then where would I be?

Fast forward a few years and, through much artistic self-expression, the major thing I’ve learned is that creativity isn’t finite. I think that each person has an innate creativity level, but what’s more important is cultivating that initial creativity. The more you use, the more you gain. With an active imagination, I often had many ideas, but they were fleeting at best. Nothing I could grab hold of and run with.

But through directed journaling, I found myself drawn to words. And the more I wrote, the more I had to write, if that makes any sense. That desire spurred the beginnings of a semi-forgotten memoir. I kept writing, kept thinking, kept brainstorming metaphors and analogies and descriptive words to illustrate my life and what I’d been through. It was through this search (and playing Temple Run on my phone) that an idea popped into my head for a story about a girl going on a quest for some sort of mythical object.

With that, the floodgates opened. The more I tinkered with the story, the more ideas started to flow. The world seemed lit up with curiosity and inspiration, the ideas tumbling out into the words of poems and stories. I’ve written more in the past year than I ever thought possible, with a few short stories, about fifty poems and a novel to show for it.

I never knew I had that kind of potential and, after all that, my well of creativity is as full as it ever was. Maybe even more. I learned to try creative things, whether I’m good at it or not. To put ideas on paper, paint on canvas, notes in a melody. To work at it until it gets better, letting my imagination run wild until I come up with something worthy. Right now it’s only words on paper. Only time will tell where my creativity will take me.