Thursday, January 28, 2016

Everyone Has Creative Talent!


by Jackie King

Each person has certain God-given creative talents. Some are born with wonderful singing or speaking voices. Others emerge with nimble fingers, able to play musical instruments or sing on -key. I like to think that I, and many of my current friends, have been blessed with the ‘writer-gene.’ These are all creative gifts and whether realized or not, everyone has been endowed with some variety of this type of DNA. (Perhaps I should add, “IMO,” in order to “CMA.”) J

These talents might include cooking, gardening, decorating or other types of arty knacks that are sometimes considered to be of a practical nature. Nonetheless, these creative talents.

Comment from a teenage daughter: "Holy freaking cow! Mom made homemade Croissants with strawberry syrup and cinnamon rolls for breakfast!"
Along with artistic type endowments, we also have innate or practical talents. I have always longed for the housekeeping/organizing ability. But sadly, I do not. While some folks have files, I’m one of those pitiful types who have piles. If I file something, it’s forever lost to me. If I sort papers into stacks, then I’m able to locate what I’m searching for, although not as efficiently.

Luckily for me, I gave birth to a natural-born organizing guru! My youngest daughter, Jennifer, can find and make order out of any sort of chaos.

My closet, for example.

A while back she brought order to the closet from hell within two hours. My help consisted of standing by, wringing my hands, and pleading, “Could we have a ‘maybe’ pile?”

After Jennifer had performed her magic and gone back to her own house and family, I drove to Goodwill and donated a trunkful of clothes for slimmer women, along with matching shoes and purses.

You’re probably wondering what this has to do with writing and with Murder Most Foul. I’m about to get around to that.

Yesterday evening I was drawn again and again to admire my homogeneously and color-coded walk-in. How did she do that? I wondered.

Then I realized that this was pretty much the reaction I receive from some of my longtime friends and my relatives about my published books. “However did you make a story out of that?” they say. Or, “Where do you come up with your idea?” Or, “I never thought you’d be able to write a real mystery.” (Translation: one that people would pay money to read.) J

Sometimes I’m not sure how I manage this feat, either. I only know that I feel compelled to keep trying. I do know, though, as I sit in a restaurant waiting for an order, I’m looking over my fellow diners and noting their hand movements, facial expressions, and the way they walk. All of this will be fodder for developing characters. My daughter sits at the same table and watches the food being served to nearby people, trying to dissect how the recipes were prepared. One of her creative passions is cooking.


Isn’t it wonderful that God didn’t make us like Jello, all in exactly-alike molds? Instead He chose to craft everyone as unique, each with her or his very own and very special creative talents.
Woman learning to paint

Writer editing work




2 comments:

Jean Henry Mead said...

Loved this post, Jackie. It's so true. I've heard people say, "I have no talent," to which I reply, "I love the way you've decorated your home" or "You have the most attractive yard in the neighborhood. I've found that "creative people" have more than one talent such as writers who also paint, sing and play musical instruments.

You were in good company with famous western writer Louis L'Amour who had a large office but no filing cabinets.There were three to four-foot stacks of papers surrounding his deak. When I asked if he had a secretary, he said, "No, and I don't want one. I know exactly where everything I need is."

Bill Kirton said...

Well, Jackie, you know I agree with you because you've further developed the sort of thing I said in my own blog. It really is strange that it's only when a reader says 'How did you make a story out of that?' or shows one of the other reactions you've noted that we can step back and look at ourselves critically and (we hope) say 'yes, they're right. That's pretty good.' Doing the writing, developing the idea, mixing it with others, inventing people who don't exist - they're all quite impressive gifts to have, but when we're exercising them, they seem (and are) as normal as any other everyday activity. It's only when we look at them critically that we see how weird they are.