Dear Creatives
I am reading DEAR WRITER by MAGGIE SMITH (the writer and poet who also wrote the very lovely, poignant YOU COULD MAKE THIS PLACE BEAUTIFUL). This book is tag-lined as: Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life . And right now, maybe I need a bit of a pep talk for my own creative life, because, with anything one creates, doubts arise: is this any good ? I was having a conversation with a friend the other day about this very subject, a creative life. She’s known for a long time that my writing is important to me (she’s read one of my WIP novels), but because painting has been a recent development (only in the past few years), she assumed it was less important, a ‘hobby’ as she put it. Which immediately got me defensive. My painting is NOT a mere ‘hobby’, I exclaimed. But why did I feel the need to self-justify my art as more than a hobby? I think we view hobbies as diversions, something we do to relax or pass the time. If you’re engaged in a hobby, people may feel it...
