Creative Writing

I’ve been blogging a long time and my physical ability has changed over recent years. So here are the ways I have still been creating, just in other ways.

As a child I loved to write stories and poems. For a long time I didn’t persue that, but it came back in some extent with the blog but has really increased in the last 6 years and even more now.

Writing Prompts

There is a wonderful site called Writers Digest. They have many prompts for writers but for me its their weekly poetry promt on a Wednesday that I enjoy. Every April and November they do a PAD Challenge; Poem A Day on the site too. I rarely sit to intentionally write a poem, mine just appear in my head and I scurry to find pen n paper quickly to write them before I forget them. I like to collect the promts n write them in a journal to come back to. (deadlines aren’t for me).

Do have a look, there is lots to discover on the site.

Writers Digest

Poetry Prompts

The Creative Muse

As someone with dyslexia, I am a very visual learner/creator. I loved in school when u could look through a drawer of pictures, choose one then write a story all about it. I still now save certain cards, postcards or pictures from calendars, they can be great ways to escape, to imagine yourself stepping into the picture and the story unfolding.

I took a drawing class with Jane Davenport. In one episode she mentioned Ball Jointed Dolls, I research it and now have quite a few! I had intended only to get ONE to pose and to draw but they are so expressive and posable, that very quickly stories flowed just by having them around.

In 2020 I found the art style Kawaii, its a Japanese art style and super cute! As someone who when I painted before was into grungy style creating rust in projects I never thought that *cute* would appeal, but lots has happened and feeling fragile cute was very much needed. It started with a few art books to learn how to draw in that style, then one night I saw some very cute crochet mice and a bear, my head just exploded like a box of fireworks with stories and poems. I ordered some, and litterally for a week, I was glued to my journal trying to keep up with the creative flow.

I hadn’t expected to write the stories in verse, but it just happened that way. I litterlly can be having breakfast, washing up and a line or two appears in my head. I scrabble for pen n journal, and the rest just flows. It became a dream come true, when I was able to do some little sketches to accompany the words I wrote. If you have seen the film Beatrix Potter and how she paints the animals around her. I’ve always wanted to be able to do that.

So the art inspired the dolls, the dolls inspired the writing and then the crochet creatures arrived and I’ve got a firework display of ideas in my head.

But I’m not sorry, I’m very thankful. Thankful that I am able to feed the creative muse when it calls. Because life got too much, for a long time and my muse went silent. Then my soul started to scream, in words in colour out on the page. Not pretty, not card worthy, but necesarry.

Create in ways that make your soul sing, maybe it will make you smile, or dance or cry. All is ok, its your creativity, your soul calling. Sometimes only when our world gets darker than we can possibly imagine, do we start to see the world in new ways, different ways. We are no longer the same, too much has changed for that to be possible. New can be scary and challenging and take a while to get used to. Don’t force it. Take your time.

Breathe slowly, and listen to your soul. Bring a journal and a pencil and see what wants to flow on the page.

I am forever grateful to Jane Davenport for her art classes allowing me to make a dream come true, that I can now sit with a journal and a pen, and make the pictures in my head flow on to the page. I am grateful to Pic Candle books and videos for showing me how to draw cute.

At last I can be me, a pen, a pencil an journal and maybe a box of pens or tin of pencils and let my own creativy be free on the page.

Be yourself everyone else is taken

I hope you find what makes your heart sing and can one day follow that, in whatever way is possible in your life, even if only on paper or in your head.

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon

Billie 🦓🌈🙏🌈🦓