Creativity

Years ago a roommate, and my best friend, found a book in the library which contained nothing but various types of personality/intelligence tests. Specifically, it claimed to offer ways for you to measure all the different types of intelligence you had, not just IQ, but things like organizational, mechanical, emotional, or creative intelligence.

C. is an artist. Naturally she took the creativity test first. As I recall, one part of it was that you were supposed to come up with a list of ways to use a pictured item - a pipe or some such thing. C. came up with 98. When I took the same test I came up with something like 5.

C. claimed that it showed that I wasn't creative, and said that she agreed with it. That really upset me. I've always regarded myself as a creative person. I've always wanted to be a writer, loved doing creative things, been praised for being a creative person. That was just who I was. Jennifer the Creative. Jennifer the Writer. Telling me I was the creative equivalent of a concrete wall struck at one of the foundation supports of my identity. We had quite a fight about it.

It was relatively easy to dismiss that test. I mean, really, a test from an old library book? I know how real psychological testing works, and that isn't how you come up with a reliable result. Unfortunately that opinion was echoed by C., my best friend, the person who knew me better than anyone else. So it's been there in the back of my head ever since, a lingering question that I've never been able to resolve.

So that's the background. Lately, I've been thinking that maybe C. was right. I look at myself, at what I've tried to accomplish, and I see ... nothing.

When I little I never could figure out what to do with Legos. My little brother would create these amazing structures, spaceships usually. They were beautiful, expansive, airy - a cross between machine and bird.

I made houses. Small, clunky, square houses.

I'm good at homemaking. I'm really good at it. I sew, bake bread, craft with the toddler, preserve jams, vegetables, fruit and meat. I'm lousy at cleaning, but good at knitting, embroidery and crochet. We've got everything we need to survive a hurricane, blizzard or terrorist attack, and enough to help out our neighbors, too.

I'm good at writing - as long as it's non-fiction. I've won a couple of awards for my essays and editorials, and I can pull together an excellent newspaper or magazine article in no time flat.

Recently, I've been exploring photography, and I like to think I'm rather good at it. A couple of people have said nice things about my photos at any rate.

In other words, all my creativity seems to be based solidly on the concrete. If I can see it, touch it, feel it, I can photograph it or describe it. I can put the concrete together in a pleasing way. But, I can't tell a story to save my life.

I can feel the creativity inside me. It's there, like a banked fire that flares into life every now and then. I've tried to bring it out, but completely without success. It's like it's locked up, just out of reach and I can't find the key.

I can't help but write fiction. What I write is truly lousy, but I can't help it. I have to try. It's a compulsion, something I could no more stop doing than I could stop breathing. I think though, that maybe it's time to give up on the dream of being published. I don't think it's there in me. Hard work may be 90% of the equation, but without that 10% of talent, it just isn't going to happen.

I'll keep trying though. Like I said, I can't seem to stop myself.