Posting: The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. Post your thoughts on your own blog. Talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. Discuss your struggles and triumphs. Offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writer – aim for a dozen new people each time – and return comments. This group is all about connecting!
Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG.
The awesome co-hosts for the February 6 posting of the IWSG are Raimey Gallant, Natalie Aguirre, CV Grehan, and Michelle Wallace!
Click here to view everyone in the Blog Hop.
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February 6 question – Besides writing, what other creative outlets do you have?
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Creative Outlets
I cannot believe it’s already February. This year is flying by!
On the writing front, I actually worked a bit on a short story the other day. It’s the first time I’ve written much of anything in over a year. I feel like my muse is starting to resurface, which is a great feeling! Except that I just started taking online classes, and the free time I had for writing, and my other creative outlets, has been sucked away.
I’ve always been a writer, but I’ve also always been a musician, and these two outlets coincide a lot. My parents enrolled me in piano lessons when I was in 2nd grade. I never practiced as much as I should have, but I kept up lessons until I graduated from high school.
When I was 16, I saved my extra lunch money and bought my first guitar and started teaching myself how to play. I fell in love (with the guitar). While I’m not the best guitarist and play mostly folk style, it opened up a new world to me. Songwriting.
After high school, I went to college to major in Music, but pursued Voice instead of piano. I’d had enough of piano, and between writing songs and singing in choir, I wanted to hone my vocal skills. Music and I have had an on-and-off relationship in my adult life. I quit for about five years to pursue a new creative outlet. Hoop dancing.
“What is hoop dancing?” you might ask. Well, it’s pretty much what it sounds like. Hula-hooping combined with dance! Now, you don’t have to have a dance background to do this. You learn tricks and learn to treat the hoop as your partner. I found some success with hoop dance and would’ve called myself a semi-professional. I got paid to hoop, through performing and also through teaching. Something that music had never given me at this point in my life. If I hadn’t moved away from Columbia, SC, I probably would’ve been on a completely different creative path than I am now, involving hoops and circus arts.
When I left Columbia, my creative outlets swung back to music. I joined a choir that just happened to be going to New York to sing in Carnegie Hall that year and was able to go with them. This led me to go back to school to get my teaching license for music, which is my current job.
I also enjoy theatre and acting. I starred in a play a couple of years ago and actually won the People’s Choice Award that the audience voted on for my role. I haven’t done much acting lately, because I’ve moved around some and it’s extremely time-consuming.
This summer, I found another creative outlet. This may not seem like a creative outlet to some, but for me, video gaming most definitely is. I wrote a blog a while back about finding inspiration in video games for a new writing project. Not only have some games inspired me, but the content of some games requires creative thinking and creativity to be successful. Beyond that, I started streaming my video game play. Often video game streamers and YouTubers refer to themselves as “Content Creators.” While I haven’t ventured into the world of YouTube playthroughs or scripted videos, there’s a lot of creativity that goes into playing games for others and marketing yourself. Beyond that, I’m also able to stream special music streams on occasion, where I play music on my Twitch channel. The audience I have for that stream comes almost entirely from my gaming friends.
I’ve also been known to pick up a paintbrush and sling paints around. I’m not necessarily good at painting, but I find it therapeutic.
Writing was not my first creative outlet, and it certainly isn’t my only one, but it plays a huge part in my creative life and is entwined with some of my other creative endeavors.
Feel free to comment with some of your creative outlets. I’d love to hear from you!
Thanks for dropping by!
Rise J.
Twitch for gaming: www.twitch.tv/RoseEvenstar21
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