Three Lies I Once Believed About Writing
And the lessons I’ve learned through them
I should start by saying that these are lies I told myself. No one else actually voiced these things to me. I’d just, somehow, came to believe them on my own.
The first lie that I grew up believing was that I wasn’t creative.
I thought that just because I couldn’t draw like my uber-talented brother, Andrew, this made me unimaginative.
My best artwork was a stick figure person standing beside a square house with smoke billowing from the crooked chimney. I equated artistic talent with creativeness.
I have since learned that creativity is not confined to a paintbrush. Creativity is not limited to the graphic arts but can be found in visual arts, business, and writing. Yes, writing.
This leads me to the second lie.
I believed that in order to be a good writer I had to write fiction.
I had to create something out of thin air and put it on paper. I had to make up material that had never existed, scenarios I’d never experienced, situations I’d never tried. I had to come up with something that had never been done before.
I didn’t realize that by writing about my experiences, my past, my memories, I could…
