A Creativity Challenge: Side Effects

Perhaps what I'm loving most about tackling this Creativity Challenge (currently in week three!) is all of the side benefits its seemed to have.  I thought and intended to use this month to concentrate solely on my writing, and I've been doing more writing this month than in maybe the last few years combined.  But tapping that aspect of whatever creativity I seem to have has also tapped others.

I've started playing music again.  When I was a kid, I played a bunch of instruments; I played the piano, the violin, the clarinet, the ukulele.  I stopped somewhere along the way when my interest died out or to keep playing seemed like too much to put on my plate at the time, but I've begun picking some of it up again.  Specifically, the piano.  N. is a jazz pianist and has always been in a band of some sort.  He doesn't currently play or go to gigs, but he did a lot of that when we first began dating, and when I figured out just how talented he was, it made me proportionally intimidated to do anything musical in front of him.  Who wants to look like an amateur loser in front of this guy she's into, right?  This is a ridiculous reaction since, as I've learned lately, he absolutely loves the fact that I'm showing an interest in the piano again.  This in turn has given birth to a whole new goal of mine: I'm hoping one day to consider myself good enough to play in front of him.

The other side benefit of the Creativity Challenge has been that I'm learning to be a little easier on myself when it comes to my writing.  As I mentioned in my last update, my story is giving me trouble (in that I can't get passed the first 10 pages).  And I've been stuck behind this monumental wall that is Chapter 1 for the past few months, not willing to move on until I've made the necessary transition seamless.  This Challenge, like NaNoWriMo, is forcing me to get something down on paper no matter where it fits into this story or any other for that matter.  As a result, I'm learning that maybe this story isn't one that I'm ready to tell just yet; maybe I need to work on something else, something more...on the surface of my mind...before trying my hand at this one.  I would never have gotten here without this month.