Grandma Jane

Sometimes when I'm writing, I bounce ideas off my four year old.

He's actually quite helpful, especially since right now I'm working on writing some children's books. He's the perfect guinea pig.

My Grandmother was a teacher and also a writer. I remember receiving long, typed letters from her. She often encouraged me in the pursuit of education and especially writing, since I shared with her that it was something I wanted to do. I remember her giving me very specific advice. I wish I still had them, perhaps they are laying around somewhere in a box at my parents' house. Before she passed she even managed to write a book herself. A family history and genealogy that she dedicated and gifted to all of her grand kids.

I'm not a super spiritual person...that is, I don't have prophetic dreams, or have some sort of magnified other-worldly connection. But I feel like my grandmother is pushing me and guiding me in this endeavor, especially in this one particular story. I think about her all the time lately when I'm writing. I wonder how she might like this story idea, I even have a sort of conversation with her in my head, ask for advice on a word or phrase.

I'm still fairly young as a writer, but I know enough to realize that anything I do creatively is not just me and my own talent, that there is a spiritual component to creativity, whether it's God, or my ancestors, that offer insight, encouragement, or completely work through me. I've felt it before in music, when the song comes so easily and then you step back and say, "wow, did I just write that?" It's when I completely open myself up to let God work through me, instead of just relying on myself, that I am able to do my best work. It's comforting too, to know that I don't have to do it alone.

It may sound weird, but I think any creative person has this experience to some extent whether they realize it or not. Creativity is about tapping into something intangible-- an idea in your head, a vision, an inspiration--and making it substantial. A person's own skill and passion definitely makes a difference, but there is a communing with something outside of yourself...or perhaps inward, yet still invisible, whenever we sit down at the keyboard, or pick up an instrument, or a paint brush. Some people will call it God, or the Universe, or a Muse (any ancient Greeks out there?)

Right now I call it Grandma Jane.