What creative activities do I do besides writing?

One of the things I love most about hanging out with writers and librarians (I am both), is that we’re a creative bunch. Writing is an inherently creative activity, yet writers will often have other creative hobbies as well. Ditto for librarians. As I’ve taken on leadership positions at work, I have less and less time for any creative work (including writing, sadly), but I still build creativity into my life where I can. So, what creative activities do I do besides writing?

I’ll answer that in a minute, but first: This post is part of the Insecure Writers Support Group (IWSG) blog hop. On the first Wednesday of every month, we IWSG-ers share our doubts, fears, struggles, and triumphs. Our awesome co-hosts this month are Diedre Knight, Lisa Buie Collard , Kim Lajevardi, and JQ Rose. Stop by and leave them some comment love.

Each month our fearless leader (Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh) gives us an optional question to answer. This month’s question: What creative activity do you engage in when you’re not writing?

Creative activities I wish I had more time for

So, let me get back to answering the question. There’s something magical about creating, well, anything, so I’ve tried quite a few creative hobbies over the course of my life: various fiber arts (embroidery, cross stitch, knitting, crochet for about 5 minutes, and sewing), gardening, cooking, scrapbooking, photography, and writing (duh). The ones that I still do: writing (again, duh), photography (strictly amateur), cooking, and gardening. My retirement dream is to do more of all of these things, especially writing, gardening, and photography. I wouldn’t mind taking up knitting and sewing again too, and I really want to learn to quilt.

I used to blog more often and include lots of photos, mostly travel and garden pix. If you want to see some (c’mon… lie to me and tell me you want to see some):

• Garden-related posts
• Posts focused on photos, usually travel
• Arizona-related posts, usually including pictures of cactuses

I also love attempting concert photography. I don’t go to a lot of concerts anymore–I’m old and go to bed early, and concerts are freakin’ expensive–but I do have a few concert pics posted on here.

• Steel Panther
• Last in Line
• Def Leppard (of course) and Styx

As I said, there’s something magical about creating. Something new exists–a story, a photo, a plant, a garden design, a loaf of homemade bread–because of something I did. That’s real power. Mwahahahahah.

Ahem.

It really is, though. I believe humans were made to create, and when we don’t, we suffer. So go forth and create!

Writing and personal news

• I’m slowly making progress editing Delta Dawn. Work keeps getting in the way, but some progress is better than no progress.
• We’re settling into our home in Clovis, CA. Still too many boxes, but we’re getting there. Now that the weather is cooler, we’re also starting to garden. Our yard is almost a half acre and parts of it are empty (but they won’t be for long… the local nurseries are going to *love* me).
• We took a day off from work and home stuff last month to visit Yosemite. It’s one of my favorite places, and now it’s less than 2 hours away. Pics to follow if I can get my act together enough to post them.
• We had fun terrorizing the neighborhood kids on Halloween. Our display was a bit last-minute–we had to find and unpack the props–but it turned out all right. Here are a couple of pics:

The memery

And now I’m wondering if you can use C4 to transfer an image from the Sunday comics. IYKYK (and you’re old).

That’s the damn truth. Now where’s the leftover Halloween candy?

And finally:

I am the Scandinavian architect. Long-Suffering Husband is the raccoon on crystal meth. And in case you’re wondering what happens when such a pair creates an offspring, let’s just say raccoon-on-crystal-meth appears to be a dominant trait.

That’s it for me this month. May your creative activities bear fruit and your raccoon on crystal meth learn to load the freakin’ dishwasher correctly.