Creativity's Path

 

Creativity—reflecting and embodying our destiny as made in the image of our Creator triune God, author, artist, designer, engineer, composer extraordinaire.

Creativity - a torch lit within and fanned by others.

One of the highlights of my childhood was winning the first prize  in an art competition (in  Grade 3). I loved to draw and paint as a child. I also had a passion for reading inspired by my parents reading the the Chronicles of Narnia to my brothers and me each night.

Lewis’ imaginative stories transported me to another world, their strong symbolism and courage an inspiration. Shortly after, I discovered the school library. Reading books especially by Lewis and Patricia St John helped me understand my faith. Stories gave flesh and blood and motions to the biblical truths I’d learnt from the cradle. They helped me understand grace and God’s great love and power. They encouraged me to appreciate other people, their perspectives and motivations.

I was nine when my family uprooted and travelled to Africa – a process that took four months from leaving Mt Isa and arriving by train in Kitwe. Around this time, I began daydreaming characters and adventures in my own world. I was inspired by Narnia, Last of the Mohicans, and later, by Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, and the many other books I read. My own inner storytelling grew and expanded from one small island and a handful of characters, to continents and peoples and various nations. It was some years before I told anyone about it, though I did draw pictures, make notes and maps and genealogies, invented an alphabet and language.

While in Zambia, one of the missionaries took an interest in my world-building and encouraged me to write my stories down. I did make a series of paintings based on my world and write a short story set in it, but it wasn’t until my late teens, early twenties that wrote my first attempt at a novel.

Creativity can have twists and turns and lay-bys

Over the next couple of years, I rewrote and edited the novel, got a nibble from a publisher, wrote some short stories, but put it all one side when my life took a different tack. Over the next fifteen years, I put all my energy into post-graduate study, lecturing, church, husband and children and the challenges along the way. Writing, apart from lecture notes, student handbooks, promotional brochures, research papers, course outlines, newsletters and articles, was decidedly on the backburner. 

I invested many years of my life, my heart and soul into theological study and lecturing. Yet, due to restructuring, other people’s decisions, health challenges, and family demands, I came to the point where I had to let it go, and I was shattered. A combination of burn-out and loss of a long held and cherished dream left me empty, depressed and my faith shaken. Always before this, troubles had thrown me closer to God. Now I felt abandoned, left on the shelf, shunned. I struggled through dark days, but in midst of that darkness, God whispered to me. At a woman's camp, He whispered ‘I have a new dream for you.’ It took me three years and an amazing God-encounter in one of my darkest moments before I could hear His words, and more to the point, accept them.

But then, one day, God had other plans.

God had called me to ‘feeding his sheep’ and opened the doors to lecturing in a theological college. Then he was called me to write the stories He’d given me. I enrolled in a Master of Creative writing and, through a writers’ conference, connected with other Christian writers. I dusted off my old novel and began writing new stories and poetry. I learned new ways of writing (styles change over time) and gained a greater understanding of how story works. Gradually, my poems and shorts stories were accepted for publication and I launched out as an Indie author. I have a half-shelf of books - anthologies and sole-authored books.

Being an author is hard work. Sometimes it feels like shouting into the abyss, desperate to hear even the faintest echo return - a sale, a review, someone inspired or comforted or entertained by what one has written. Don't get me wrong, I've had many sales, reviews and people excited about my stories - but also long periods of silence in which it is easy to allow doubts to flourish.

As an introvert (as so many of us are), the constant effort to be seen and noticed can become wearying to the soul. It's easy to lose the original motivation to write, especially when life and friends and family also brings more hard knocks and disappointments. 

I write in a genre many Christians don’t understand (despite the greats like C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Madeleine D’Engle or even John Bunyan). These were stories captured my imagination as a child, that strengthened and enlivened my faith. And these are the stories I believe God has given me to write.

Being creative, being a story-teller, (or an artist or musician), pointing to the light in the darkness, are these not reflections of God, at least part of what it means to be made in His image?

Jeanette O'Hagan has spun tales in the world of Nardva from the age of eight. She enjoys writing fantasy, sci-fi, poetry, and editing. Her Nardvan stories span continents, millennia and cultures. Some involve shapeshifters and magic. Others include space stations and cyborgs.

She has published over forty stories and poems, including the Under the Mountain Series (5 books), Ruhanna's Flight and Other Stories, Akrad's Children and Rasel's Song, the first two books in the Akrad's Legacy series - and new short story in the Starlit Realms: Fantasy anthology.

Jeanette has practised medicine, studied communication, history, theology and a Master of Arts (Writing). She loves reading, painting, travel, catching up for coffee with friends, pondering the meaning of life.

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