Hello, friends, and Happy New Year! Today is the January meeting of The Insecure Writer's Support Group. The group was founded by our Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh. To view list members and this month's co-hosts, or to sign up and join the group, visit the IWSG page here.
I'm starting off this year by looking backwards several decades to the first story I ever wrote. My mom came upon the story a while ago while going through some boxes at her house, and it came as a surprise to me because I have no memory of writing it. The story is called Funny Bunny and I not only wrote it, but also did my own illustrations.
I created this masterpiece when I was eight years old and gave it to my mom as a present. No doubt she was thrilled ha. 😉😀
One thing that stands out to me when I look at this is that apparently even as a child I had a taste for the macabre. Funny Bunny goes out looking for lettuce for dinner and finds a fox who he tells about his search. The fox says he is also looking for dinner and poor Funny Bunny becomes that dinner. The twist makes me laugh and also makes me wonder about my childhood mind.
But the main thing I think of when I see this story is that I know for sure that the eight year old version of me who created it had no worries about not being able to write or not being creative. I just did it because I wanted to create a story. Somewhere in the succeeding decades my brain started telling me I couldn't write, wasn't creative, wasn't this, couldn't do that.
I'm grateful to have overcome some of those doubts and fears in the past decade, but like many of us I still struggle with insecurities and the dreaded imposter syndrome. So in this new year and new decade I'm resolving to get back to the (slightly twisted) little kid who had an idea for a story, wrote it down, and had fun doing it. I'm excited about several writing projects and ideas right now and plan to enjoy the simple process of creating.
I wish you all a very Happy New Year and here's to lots of writing and creating in the days and years to come.
