Having to produce a piece of writing usually throws me for a loop. Cue the cold sweats. My self-diagnosis is that I severely lack originality–my imagination is non-existent–and I generally have a hard time pulling my thoughts together just to string a few sentences in a cohesive way. It’s really a chronic condition. The same thing happened when I used to sketch. Asked to draw something, and the paper remained blank. It just lay there looking all sad but mocking at the same time. However, if I found an image that spoke to me, all of a sudden, my pencil was dancing across the poster board—creating outlines and shadows. I’ve never coloured my drawings. Again, that takes originality to complete, not to mention another set of skills. Nope, I liked the black-and-white, or rather the shades of grey, for my creations. (I’m really not sure what that says about me.) Technically, my sketches came together because of someone else’s creativity, but I enjoyed the results of my labour nevertheless. I may not have been an original artist of the photograph or the picture which inspired me, but I liked reproducing them in my own way.
But, back to writing. Replicating an image is not the same as helping writers shape their creations through editing, but my sense of satisfaction with both processes is strangely similar. I’m able to use my skills to produce “my version” of that work or, at least, feel like I’ve contributed in a small way to the writer’s vision. Something happens in my mind when I work with an author to polish their manuscript. As if miraculously dropped from a different universe, I find a spark of imagination, and I can offer solutions for plot details or provide stylistic revisions to scenes that I doubt I would have come up with on my own. And that’s good enough for me.
Would I love to write a story of my own sometime? Sure. I’ve tried over the years. I have bits and pieces of handwritten and typed-out chapters going back more moons than I care to admit, but none of that resulted in one cohesive story line. Instead of disparaging that I can’t do it, I’ve recognized that my strength is in fleshing out the framework developed by someone else. I’m still hopeful that one day I can build my own foundations (i.e., have an original story idea and create the plot outline for it) and then craft the colourful characters and places, but for now, I shall take pride in what I do. I will continue improving my technical skills (e.g., grammar, punctuation, structural organization) so I can use these to help the creative forces focus on what they do best—using their imagination to bring to life worlds and characters that give joy to happy readers like me.