I've joined a Guild at church. Spirit and Creativity. I believe my work is too secular to be accepted there, but I will try. I've dug out my never-used Creativity Self-Hypnosis CD and listen every night while I fall asleep. I put the musical, subliminal persuasion, version in the car to play while I drive. Just for fun. Get the juices stirring. I am an old hand at self-hypnosis and at creativity. The two are compatible.
I realized after a short talk (about my personal path to creativity) that I gave at last weeks meeting that I write mysteries, poetry, haiku, recipes, and more - then transfer everything to CD's with password protection. That's over, I decided. Everything I do, from here on out, will be for sharing.
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| When I woke up this morning, it was my Birthday! |
I put all of this into the back of my mind, yesterday, in favor of football, hot wings, and afternoon sunshine. When I woke up this morning, it was my Birthday! Seventy-two is a remarkable age. In my humble opinion. (IMHO)
That's a lot of written words, over a great number of years. Trade journal articles, diaries, Opticianry rules, optical presentations, speeches, neighborhood newsletters, classroom essays, op-ed letters, short stories, and limericks don't come even close to telling the whole story of what I did with all those words in all that time.
My self-hypnosis tape suggests that the listener keep a bottle of water by the bed, along with a pencil and a notepad. Upon awakening, one should first drink a little water which nudges (post-hypnotic suggestion) the subconscious to spew forth ideas and thoughts. One must write these down. Like a bad dream, they'll be forgotten within the hour. Skip this morning, I told myself. It's going to be a wonderful day.
After coffee in the cool of the early-morning patio air, I came inside for bed-making and blind-opening. There it was. The composition book was on the floor, pencil on top. There was a sheet of copy paper stuck inside. I saw that the entire page was covered with the drawings of a set of cartoon characters. Five of them. (I can almost remember, if I concentrate, turning on the reading lamp and going to work in the deep of the night.) In the notebook, there are the dialogues for several cartoon strip installments. Each one of them can also be used as a one-window script. I have it all notated!
The trouble is that the characters, the humor, the sketches, and the ballooned voices are all about my church, Holy Comforter. Is a church allowed to have a comic strip? May comic characters be based on Fr. Ted and Mtr. Terry? Can an angel become best friends with a little boy? Is she a real angel and not an imaginary friend? Might that be the question that the story line explores?
Will anything extraordinary and lasting come of all this? I have to try. I'll take some samples of the work to next month's meeting. The worst that can happen would be the members nodding and smiling, all the while thinking, "Senile, poor dear."
Several days ago, I had another great idea (I was wide awake for this one) which was to write the children's Christmas Pageant. I think it's too late for this year, but surely for 2013. My idea for that event is amazing, too.
First, though, the comic strip. What a surprise! Happy Birthday to me - more than a little quirky, but certainly alive and happy - on this beautiful October morning. Still, I may be dismissed from the Guild. They are a group of talented, seemingly very serious, deeply spiritual thinkers. Time will tell. I have some sketching to do.
