Tuesday's inspiration #amreading #am writing J L Walters' Thoughts on Limits and Creativity

It's always interesting to find someone who has read some of the same books you have while seeking to learn about the creative process and limitations. Katherine Paterson is such a writere both read Rollo May's Courage To Create. This is what she discovered. "There is no such thing as unlimited creativity. It is within limits, often very narrow limits, that a creative work comes into being."

What are your limits? There are things limiting me. The way I grew up, the life I have today, the kind of memories I have about emotional events and the very emotions, the love I've had and the love I've given. The list could go on. Even my imagination has limitations. There are stories I can never tell, words write. Take horror stories. I can't read them and I can't write them. This isn't to say I can't write very bad people into my stories. Their villany is limited by what I know and have lived.

Part of the trick is in recognizing the limitations you have and using them. Filtering them through your imagination brings a story into being. My life as a child, as a teen, as an adult, the things I feel about what happened to me is filtered through my imagination and usually finds its way onto the paper.

What about you? Have you looked at your own limitations and filtered them through your imagination? Take a moment to think about this.