I can hardly ever retrace the path of my creative ideas, but as far as my latest one, I know I was swimming. If I care to go back a little further, I had checked out two books the Saturday before I’d gone swimming. One was “A History of Mathematics” by Carl B. Boyer and the other was “How to Draw Comics” by Stan Lee. Strange mix? Not really, if you know my main creative writing endeavor!
I’ve been working on my second novel, “The Adventures of Infinity and Negativa” for the past year. The two title characters are mathematical characters who I visualize as two larger-than-life black female superhero types. They’re not superheroes in the sense of “saving” anyone, but I visualize them drawn in that superhero style.
Somehow, in the course of writing my second contemporary novel, these two fantasy characters entered the scene. Although my drawing abilities tell me that I will have to eventually hire a graphic artist to render Infinity and Negativa at a professional level, I’m still having fun with the newfound motivation to sketch.
I’d started taking a two-hour oil painting class when I lived in Honduras back in 2006. I still continue the habit–at least when the weather is pleasant. When it’s too cold, I don’t bother painting on my wonderful little balcony. Instead, I sketch out things that I’ll eventually paint when the weather improves.
What makes this sketching season so special is that I’m bringing my characters to life, given my limited abilities! As I excitedly read Lee’s inviting, encouraging book, geared toward budding cartoonists, such as myself, I hit the golden tip that can catapult my dream into a reality even faster: there’s a free on-line program that will help me with the illustrative aspects of making my own cartoon strip or graphic novel form.
So, while I swam, my thoughts swirled around how I could use that program to insert graphic depictions of Infinity and Negativa then embed that directly into the manuscript. Then, my thoughts drifted back to my classroom situation. I used to pour so much of my creative energy into my classroom because I had the freedom to do so. Now, it’s all I can do to assess, analyze data, create another assessment and keep on that tedious high-stakes testing gerbil wheel.
Then it happened. My creative writing/illustrative idea crossed with my challenge of being creative in the classroom. First up, I thought about how my students would love the idea of doing a science research project, summarizing their results in and on-line comic strip format. Then, another tantalizing idea came to me: I could use the program to help express some of the challenges that I have as a teacher. A comic strip based on the challenges of a public school classroom teacher!
As usual, I have to somehow find the time to put the idea into action since I’m such a busybody that I scarcely have time to do every creative idea I can think of. At the same time, the writing aspect of this new endeavor will not be too difficult since I’d base it mostly on my teaching experiences since I hit the Lone Star State.
I finished up my swimming workout, feeling far more than physically energized. I have to get over the new technology hump and then see how far I get from there. As far as my manuscript is concerned, I’m still working on it every day until it’s ready for editing. Yet, I’m not a one-trick pony; so I have to keep my mind sharp on many creative aspects.