create verb 1 bring something into existence 2 cause to happen – ORIGIN Latin creare ‘produce’
creative adjective 1 involving the use of imagination or original ideas in order to create something – DERIVATIVES creatively adverb creativeness noun creativity noun
I never thought of myself as ‘a’ creative. A creative is an artist, visual or textual, an actor or a singer – someone in a minority. Isn’t it? Not a bank clerk who blogs about reality shows. But then I pitched up at a Tuttle one month – March 2010 – and met those who are now the nucleus of coFWD. One of the first things I was asked is: “Are you a creative?” And I had to think about it. Was I? I’d just landed a writing job – an actual, proper paid writing job – but I still worked in a call centre. I thought about it and answered: “Er, yes? I guess so… ”
I’d been blogging for two years and writing in earnest, for fun, for much longer: short fiction, sketches, reality show reviews and spoof news (which was pretty inventive if I do say so myself) so yes, I now considered myself (a) creative. At least, I’d created a total of three different blogs to put it all on.
I collaborated on the creation of the Rochester LitFest but I wonder, would the idea have occurred if I hadn’t been hanging around the Tuttle bunch? Probably, eventually – it had already occurred to writer friends Emma Dewhurst and Philip Kane. Then we all said it out loud and boom! The inspiration to Do Stuff Now had grabbed me and suddenly I’m applying for Writer in Residence jobs – a role I didn’t even know existed before.
There’s no box you have to fit into to be creative: Taxi driver; photographer; librarian; designer; accountant; sculptress; call centre worker – it’s a state of mind. You know when you’re figuring out how to raise money at the school fete – you’re being creative. When you’re robbing Peter to pay Paul? That’s being creative. (Unless you’re an accountant, then it’s fraud.)
The fact you’re reading this suggests you’re a like mind. Head telling you to do something? But you don’t know what that something is yet? Watch out for the next Tuttle and it could be your experience we’re reading about next 🙂
