In my own little corner, in my own little.....straitjacket?

We've all heard those sayings about creative people, right?  Those old proverbs that get repeated generation to generation.  One of the first ones I remember hearing was this one:

"An artist must suffer for his art."

When I first heard this one, I didn't understand it.  Why would someone purposefully suffer in order to be able to draw, or paint, or put words together to make poems, stories, novels?  In the books I was reading at the time, the typical "Dick and Jane" stories, Dr. Seuss, comic strips by Charles Schulz, none of the characters seemed to have any particular suffering behind them unless you counted poor Charlie Brown, for whom nothing ever seemed to go quite right.  Of course, I still thought in those days that I was "normal", especially after seeing Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Cinderella".  After all, when she sang "In My Own Little Corner", Cinderella aptly described what play time was like for me, even though I didn't have to be in my own little corner to be able to pretend that I was someone or something else, living an adventure instead of just being quiet so that my little brother could have a nap.

I started learning about suffering when I started going to school, when I had to pull back into myself in order to be accepted by my peers.  If I let my imagination go too much when playing during recess, creating extravagant stories to go with the games they wanted to play, I was ostracized for being "different".  Keeping the scenes and characters who inhabited my head locked up made them fight harder to be set free, making me act even stranger than when I was telling people about what my imagination was showing me.  There were a few friends who appreciated my special gift and allowed me to release some of the stories into play, but by the time one of my older sisters was given a diary to put her thoughts and secrets into, I was on the verge of needing to be committed to a rubber room.

I had an epiphany.  I needed to buy a notebook/diary and start putting some of my thoughts into it.  But first, I needed to earn some money, because money was always tight at my house, so my parents couldn't afford to get me a notebook on a whim...and that was about when I found this quote in a book on the bookmobile that came to our small town during the summer (we didn't have a town library) while looking at paintings by great artists:

“Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not." - Pablo Picasso

I asked myself "why not", and started going around to the neighbors, looking for odd jobs to do.  I mowed lawns for a couple of bucks per mow.  I picked peas for the price of ten cents a bushel.  I basically hired my young self out to any neighbor who needed something done that they were unable - or unwilling - to do themselves, and although I was never rich, I always had enough to get what I really needed or wanted.  When I didn't need a new notebook or the pens and pencils to write my thoughts in it, I used my earnings for embroidery floss and yarn, as my Memere was trying to teach me "all those things that girls need to know how to do", so I was learning to knit, crochet, embroider, and sew.  When I had enough supplies for whatever Memere and I were doing, I would occasionally treat my friends to the penny candy, as a single thin dime, if properly spent, would fill up a small bag with enough sugary goodness to make one sick if all eaten in a single afternoon. 

Of course, I also was learning a work ethic in those early years, as the people who hired me would pay me at the end of the job, so if I did a poor job, they would dock my pay accordingly.  I learned to do a good job if I wanted good pay, and if I did the job well enough to have my "employer" give me an additional tip...THAT would encourage me to work harder and do an even better job.  I have a strong suspicion that this job ethic is why I also have the attitude that I do toward writing. 

I initially write something simply because I've learned over the years that it does me no good at all to try to keep everything stuffed in the dark recesses of my brain.  If I overstuff my brain pan, I'll eventually be getting myself stuffed into a padded cell, because there is a finite amount of brain space that can be used for keeping all the things up there that I need to be able to access.  I edit my material because, when the voices of the characters stop pushing the story along, I need to confirm whether this is something that should be put into the proper format and sent off to a publisher, or whether this is something that is incomplete and should be tucked into a drawer for a little while.  And last but not least, should the piece I've written be good enough to mean I get paid for doing it, I'm willing to accept what the publisher offers, as they are the "employer" who expects me to do a certain job a certain way, so they should be able to pay me what they think I've earned.

As to that "suffering" thing?  I think I now understand it.  My books would be pretty boring if my only experience was the good in life.  At this stage in my life, I've lost many of the people in my life who encouraged me to become the person that I am.  There are holes in my heart where these people lived, and those losses sometimes come into my work as part of a character's past.  I now understand Charlie Brown, who was different from his friends and was ostracized as I was.  I go into life with my eyes wide open, seeing all the horrible things that happen in life, absorbing those experiences whether they happen directly to me or not, and I later release them back into the world as part of one of my tales.

And the quote that now seems to have become a part of me is from one of the most famous "suffering artists" of all, Vincent Van Gogh:

"If you hear a voice within you say, 'You cannot paint', then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced."

The voice that used to tell me I couldn't write is now silenced.  The only voices I hear are the characters within my head who are whispering parts of their stories to me, which I now put into files on my computer until such time as I'm working on that character's tale.  The imagination that I used to have to hide has become my means of having a little spending money tucked away to be able to buy special treats for those I care about.....