Creating As A Child

I spent a lot of time alone as a kid … mostly by choice. I was an only child growing up, so, that meant that I had to learn to play by myself.
Improvising was fun. It was earlier in my childhood I would come up with some pretty wild and detailed story lines … stories and concepts in my head would be a perfect movie or TV scene.
Later, I would learn to write and create my own short stories and poems. I would also spend a lot of time drawing maps, charts and characters for the worlds I created.
I would often live in those worlds I created because of a lot of the bullying I endured. I often felt different and unable to fit in with my peers. So, that gave me a lot of time to myself, to explore concepts and ideas. And, oh, the fun I would have when one of my cousins I was closest to would hang out with me. Together, we were like film directors or writers, crafting together the perfect high speed chase scene with toy cars or dramatic scenes at a restaurant or in a high-rise building.
By the way, the high-rise buildings were often the chairs or the book case. The living room would be a major city and the bedrooms would be the suburbs and the kitchen would be the industrial district.
I think a lot of that time as a kid at play, even with majority of it being by myself, made a huge difference in my ability to tell stories. But it also made a difference in me learning to learn the stories of others. I’m often reminded to never, ever assume that you know it all from the outside or from a conversation that’s only 5 seconds.
Everyone has a story and it started when they were a little boy or girl.

