When I was young I wrote stories about princesses and castles and faraway lands.
When I was young I used to make up plays and spend hours on my rickety old typewriter, typing up copies of play scripts for my friends. We had carbon paper and tippex on little sheets of paper back then, and I typed with two chubby fingers. I used to direct my friends in the plays, and suspect I may have been a little bossy.
When I was young I loved damming streams, and building dens in the woods, inventing pretend lives for the people whose castoffs we found dumped amongst the trees.
When I was young I remember making a pinhole camera and being fascinated by the blurry images that transpired.
When I was young I spent hours in the darkroom my dad built in our garage, watching in awe as photographic images magically emerged as I sloshed around the trays in front of me.
When I was young I had a calligraphy obsession, and would write swirly words over and over with pointy nibs and Indian ink from a tiny little pot. I even did a demonstration on The Children’s Channel when I was about 10 years old.
When I was young I used to love baking cakes and licking the bowl (and spoon).
When I was young I used to keep a scrapbook every holiday, sharing weird details like what I had eaten for lunch, or what joke my older brother had told me. I stuck everything in – train tickets, postcards, sweet wrappers – and always cut out a pretty header from coloured paper, or drew all over the page.
When I was young I made everyone’s birthday card by hand, with a fistful of glitter and big fat pens. And you should see the state of some of the Christmas tree decorations I persuaded my parents to hang on the tree.
When I was young I was creative without thinking about it. I was free to cut and stick and glue and write and make stuff up and have fun with it all, without being worried about the end result.
When I was young creativity was part of my every day life. Then I grew up, and academia and work took over. It took me many years to find my way back to the creative child inside.
How about you? What were you like as a child? In what ways were you creative? Have you managed to hold onto that? Do you feel differently when you go to create something now? Judged? Pressured? Worried about what it will look or sound like? Concerned about what other people will think?
This month is ‘Love to create’ month on Do What You Love, and we want to inspire you in many ways to JUST CREATE. Whether your medium is drawing, painting, writing, poetry, photography, storytelling, or even creative thinking, we want to encourage you to dive in, get messy and create more for the world to enjoy.
We’d love to hear your creative childhood stories – share them with us on Facebook or Twitter.
Happy creating!
Beth and the team x
