The Writer, Do not Tame the Beast

From the time precocious little girl I can recall, I had a wild imagination. Being the only little one at home at the time, I may or may not have needed that imagination to keep my extroverted toddler self amused. No, I hated playing with dolls, I preferred creating castles and buildings with mud, sand, wooden blocks, and later Lego.

Creating worlds started early and being a bossy kid (nowadays they refer to it as “leadership skills”) I let everyone who joined in the game know what the exact rules where of my worlds and they were not to be tampered with.

In my imaginary world were strong women, dashing heroes, fantastic beasts, superpowers, and triumph. Then as time went on and I grew up, the struggles and challenges of life began to slough off my imaginary armor and dull the imaginary powers within.

It was only until I officially pursued the life of a Writer that I began to understand just what the nature of the writer beast is. At last a platform to resurrect the dormant creative force within and unleash it on the page. With an insatiable inborn curiosity

When I was a little girl one of my favorite songs was “I’m a Tiger” by Lulu. 

To be fair, it was because older family members had her album that I was exposed to Lulu’s music on those vynal things played on an actual turntable, the same sort of thing that has made a resurgence in recent years (but with way better sound.) Lulu was one of the most popular female British singers of the 1960’s. Since I was only little, I did not really grasp the adult meaning of the song, but what I took away from it was this: “You won’t cage me in, just stick around see the fun begin.”

What I took away from this was to never lose who I am, my creativity, my inspiration, that part of me that wants to think outside the box.

In her blog post, The Care and Feeding of Authors, ( Seekerville, Jan 2018) author Carla Laureano gave the best advice:

“Of course, there are times when all the above will fail, and it’s important to remember that at heart, authors are still wild creatures. If you find yourself in a situation where none of the above are possible, I suggest that you throw good-quality chocolate . . . and run.”

Melony Teague is a freelance writer and author. Co-author of As the Ink Flows, Devotions to Inspire Christian Writers & Speakers. A South African Canadian, wife, mom of two teenagers & two cats. ACFW member.