Meet the Pencil.
It KNOWS it’s a pencil… but it can’t make a mark.
So, it tries to be a Chopstick… but it can’t get a good grip. It tries to be a Baton… but it sees all the quarter notes and lyrics on the pages and thinks, “I want to WRITE that.”
And the Pencil goes back to trying really hard to make marks. To write ANYTHING.
But all it manages to do is to make indents in the paper. (It learns it can erase very well… but that’s nauseating, being upside-down that long. Besides, it really doesn’t think its rubber top can be a full-time Eraser.)
And then it meets the Coach, who has made Pencils into PENCILS.
Pencil realizes the Coach is very squat, however. So squat, the pencil has to lay down to look it in the eye.
The Pencil is told to get comfortable within an opening in the Coach… and it’s a tight squeeze, but Pencil can fit… and then… Pencil feels something sharp dig into it and a piece of it is pulled off.
And Pencil yanks back in pain and horror! But then the Coach tells the Pencil to try to write something.
And wouldn’t you know it!
The line is faint and really thick and blurry… but the Pencil can write!!!
And little by little the Pencil goes under more coaching. And it hurts so much… but eventually Pencil can write the most elegant, slender line you’ve ever seen!
And Pencil realizes that it knew it was made to be a writer that whole time. Because it was inside it. Writing was the stuff it’s made of.
All Pencil needed was to be sharpened.
Could you sympathize with any part of this story?
Maybe you’ve experienced the frustration of what you BELIEVE about yourself versus what you can actually DO. (I’ve been there.)
Or the pain of being sharpened is too much to bear and doesn’t SEEM to be worth the struggle. (Yeah, I get that.)
Novelists may write in all different genres and styles but every author’s passion to write is the same.
Achingly so.
And the process of creativity–the discovery, learning curve and maturity–follows a similar pattern. From one artist to another: You Can Do It!!! (Oh, hey, so can I!) But, yeah, you’ll need some a lot of sharpening. (Sorry!)
If you enjoyed this illustration–or was helped because of it!–I’ll love to hear it! Now, go get sharpened!
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Very creative!