This morning I looked through my recent sketchbook and thought, "Wow, I can make a story about whatever I want!" I can draw or experiment and try new things. There are so many possibilities! There are ideas everywhere. But I notice how instead, I often limit myself. How do I do that? Mostly, by thinking instead of writing. By thinking instead of playing. Recently, I heard Jillian Tamaki reiterate something I've heard many amazing artist/writers say... how it will never look as beautiful as it does in your head! How true that is.
Whenever I watch my (almost nine-year-old) daughter write, I am reminded how vital it is to get the words down on the page and edit later. The art is in the revision. Trying to make a perfect sentence makes the process focused on how nice it looks and not what your thoughts are.
Yesterday, I asked my daughter what makes writing (responding to her reading) hard for her. She said how it's hard to think of ideas. I repeated it back...it's hard to think of ideas...hmm. And then she said how actually, it's not that she can't think of ideas, it's that she has too many ideas. And I thought it was wonderful that she could even articulate that. When you have so many ideas and you don't know how to put them on the page, the hardest part can be starting. When you don't know how to translate them, it can be tempting to think of the writing instead of doing the writing. But by helping her get her words on the page, I am seeing how valuable it is to write now and edit later. To write daily. To feel good that you got words on the page. And then return back to it.
