Creatively crazy #atozchallenge

I always feel creative these days.

Challenged might have been more obvious but doing this AtoZ with images has reminded me how crazily creative I feel.

I love how I feel when I let myself create without any fear or holding back. When I know I have the skills I need to chose to use them or not it gives the freedom to learn and stretch.

I’m not sure why I feel a little ashamed to say I’m competitive. Competitiveness works for me. Particularly if I’m able to support others while we compete to finish something. Like this challenge. I need others to do it so I can compete with them. I don’t mind if they finish first but I need that competitiveness to keep me enthused and engaged in doing something. Why bother if I’m doing it alone?

Mum said ‘there’s no such word as can’t’. I’ve no idea how often she said that and it was probably in response to me saying I can’t do the washing up or something, but it’s stuck. There in my consciousness, ready to jump out with her standing there saying it to me.

This is my third year of doing AtoZchallenge. The first year I used the family dictionary and because I couldn’t find twenty-six words of thirteen letters or more I used ten letters or more in memory of my mum as she used to love long words. She taught herself. Where am I going with this? Lots of the things I do now I’m self taught. Usually by doing and practicing and making mistakes then having another go and learning from them. If I’m not challenged and testing myself I’m not happy. What I mean by being challenged is having something I want to do that I haven’t done before and I need to learn and push myself in order to complete it.

Many people see some of my sketches and say ‘I wish I could draw like that’. When I say they can but they need to put in the time to learn the techniques they don’t believe me and don’t even seem interested in having a go. I’m telling you now. If there’s something you’d like to be able to do give it a go. Work out who can help or put yourself on a course or find the book or just get whatever you need and have a go. Creativity comes from challenging yourself and jumping in. Come on in the water’s warm. I might challenge you to get to the other side of the pool but we’ll both make it while we’re creatively crazy together.

Show don’t tell.

She was creatively crazy.

vs

The walls were full of half finished paintings. Paint splatter covered the floor and canvasses were piled high on the dining room table with nowhere to eat.

Or.. sat at her computer in February she wrote and rewrote her blog posts for April without worrying about the state of the house around her, then had to rewrite them again in April, oops..

Lynne’s AtoZ blogging challenge theme in case you couldn’t tell:

Linked to thoughts of emotions and behaviours, my theme is ‘I feel….’.  Writers among you will be familiar with the phrase show don’t tell, for others it’s what every novelist tries to do. Authors want to show you the emotion and behaviour without telling you it. Trying to practice showing not telling, I have included an example in each post. I may have got it right, I may not have. Please let me know.

Here’s who else is doing the AtoZblogging challenge.

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