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Hmnn… The question of the day creates joy in me! I love to expound on my plethora of talents and tries and transient exuberances, my all things creative pastimes.

Note that word within a word: past. Most of my creative outlets have been ‘single semester’ toss-asides. Crafts that I picked up and abandoned, outlets to pass the time while my husband traveled on business, almost full-time.

I used to say that my husband was “gone for a living,” because that was what his sales-and-marketing job demanded, across the entire Western states. He was sort of a ‘cowboy’ in those days, employing his abundant charisma and creative talents to shrink-film whatever a customer had the will and the want – and the cash to pay for 😉 He made $$$$$$ and rather than be lonesome, I spent some on crafts  😉 The outlet of being crafty also saved my soul, when the crush of other people’s problems in my career of speech-language pathology threatened to overwhelm me. While I always knew that feeling sorry for people didn’t help them – and helping them did – I often wasn’t able to do enough… and that hurt.

I’ve tried weaving (though not underwater), lapidary, bead bracelets (raised thousands of bucks to support breast cancer charities because the hobby lasted several years), gardening, reading, crafting my own all-occasion cards, planning trips to Elsewhere, walking, skiing (but not mountain climbing – mount-and-dismount of ski lifts was enough for me…

Being creative is ballast, a safety valve if you will. A pastime that I eagerly seek and crave to remain well.

The tandem hobbies of reading and writing are the ones that hold fast. Both have initiative, creativity, use of my prodigious vocabulary – and, above all, wordplay. Reading feeds my spirit and writing saves my soul. I share my self. What about you?