Five weeks ago, I wrote a post entitled How to kickstart your creativity without having a meltdown. This turned out to be one of my most popular posts, so I thought I’d give you a quick update on how things are going.
If you recall, I was taking ridiculously small steps towards writing and illustrating. I started by drawing three lines:
Impressive, huh?
The thing is, I drew three lines and wrote a sentence and the world did not end. (If you’re interested in the sentence, it was, “The snail wandered aimlessly.” So, yes, quite random and nothing to do with the three lines I had drawn.)
Anyway, the simple act of drawing three lines made me realise I could do more. So I did.
Each day, my drawings got bigger and better. They’re illustrations to delight myself, so we’re not talking Vincent van Gogh here but if you’d like to see them, I’ve been posting them on my Facebook page.
Sometime the drawings were very simple. For example, this is a doodle of three spiders balancing on top of each other (the spiders in my house are multi-talented):
Some came with a little story behind them. Here is Eric reading himself a bedtime story:
And some had no story or name but were just, well, cute:
I’m amazed that all this has stemmed from the decision to take a tiny step into the unknown and commit to doing one doodle and one sentence each day.
And I’m amazed at how happy and calm this one small act makes me feel.
Now I doodle and write several times a week as opposed to once a day, but what I draw is more detailed, as is what I write, so that suits me fine (go with what works for you, I say). The point is, I would NEVER be doing this if I hadn’t picked up a pencil five weeks ago and drawn three poxy lines and written one random sentence about a snail.
So if you have a desire buried away inside of you, I urge you to take a ridiculously small step towards it. Then take another. Before you know it, you’ll be doing things you never thought were possible and you’ll be feeling happier and more ‘you’ than you’ve ever felt before.
(OK, this is just my experience, so I can’t personally guarantee this… but I’m 99.9% certain this will happen if you pick the thing that’s itching to come out of you.)
Case in point: Two days ago I did something that I NEVER thought was possible. It all stemmed from a drawing I did and it taught me a big lesson. I’ll tell you all about it in my next post.
Katherine Bassford 