Create Like a Kid

When I was a kid, I went to see a play at the local university.

I was mesmerized.

It was a comedy, set in the west, and I was smitten by how the play leapt off the stage – literally. The characters moved up and down the aisles.

A gunslinger stood three feet away from me and challenged another to a duel.

This had never happened in the movies or on television. John Wayne never stepped out into the aisle to punch a villain. Jerry Lewis never did a pratfall into my living room.

Immediately, I went home and started writing my own comedic western.  I submitted it for approval, and we performed Christmas at Cowhide Creek before a crowd of teachers, parents, and other students.  It was a hit.

I Didn’t Know I Didn’t Know How

Notice something. 

I didn’t take a class in writing for the theater, or read a book on becoming a playwright, or even read five hundred plays before attempting to write my own.  I saw a play, fell in love with it, thought I’d try writing one, and did. 

Then I wrote another, and another, and pretty soon I was the school’s supplier of sketches and plays for every school assembly and parent-teacher program. 

Then I grew up.

Growing Up is Dumb to Do

I grew up and thought there was a right way and a wrong way to do almost everything, and that someone out there knew precisely how to do it.

Then I stopped writing. I was afraid I’d do it wrong. 

It Never Occurred to Me

When I was a kid, this never occurred to me.

It never occurred to me as I wrote my first book, Carl the Monkey, complete with illustrations composed from a box of 24 Crayola crayons.

It never occurred to me when I pretended to be a DJ, spinning my sister’s 45′s.

It never occured to me when I created radio plays, recorded them on a cassette recorder, and added my own sound effects.

It never occurred to me when I wrote limericks, haikus, or sonnets; mythologies, tall tales, or fables.

And it never occurred to me one night not so long ago when I read some poems by Charles Bukowski and decided to write my own.

I Guess I Was Kidding Myself

On that night I was creating like a kid, writing poems simply because it was fun.  Were they good poems?  It wasn’t the time to ask.

Another morning I was creating like a kid, playing around in my notebook when I stumbled my way into the beginnings of a short story.  Was it a good story?  It really didn’t matter.

And one day I decided that I would create like a kid and try my hand at building a website like this one. Is it a good one? I don’t know yet, but I know that I’m going to keep giving it a whirl and see where it takes me. And I’m going to have fun doing it.

We all need, I believe, a time and space in which to create unencumbered.  We all need a time when we can put away the expert opinions and the how-to’s and the things to avoid, and just play, experiment, and try our hands at something we’ve long thought about, just like we did when we were kids.

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Tagged as: Guilt Free Creativity