I just read a fabulous article in The Author - the UK Society of Authors' mag - about links between creativity and psychoanalysis (CAN YOU FACE IT? Psychotherapy and writing, by Edward Marriott).
Apparently Freud believed there were many similarities between creative writers and healthy children at play, and he pinpointed five common characteristics: both create an imaginary world; both take it seriously; both invest it with considerable emotion; enliven it with material from external reality; and manage to keep it separate from reality.
I often tell kids when I'm talking at their schools that I love my work because I am allowed, or even required to day-dream for a living. Isn't that just like the best job EVA?
Although more and more, these days (as witnessed by me suddenly breaking out into incidents of tween/teen-speak), the lines are getting rather blurry, particularly on that last point - keeping the day-dream separate from reality. For instance, I'm now blogging in character (http://www.g-mammaraps4u.blogspot.com). Try doing that for a while and then zipping off to the supermarket. It can make for some very strange exchanges with other customers, not to mention some odd choices in the shopping trolley ...
Anyway, I don't care. It's what I do; I love it; and I'm not quite ready for an institution yet. And if Freud says it's okay, then who am I to argue?
So if you'll excuse me, I'm off to run barefoot through some paint and then trail it through the house and see what kind of shapes it makes. L8r.
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