Rediscovering A Childhood Love

 Most of the month of December, I did a huge total-house purge and reorganization, including furniture rearrangement and a bit of redecorating. As I shifted my creativity away from writing stories and toward the visual arts, a part of me that I buried somewhere deep in my soul after growing up wriggled its way out of the box I'd put it in.

I began to want to color again.

Before I say anything more, I must confess that I'm terrible at drawing people and animals. But when I was a child, I relished the mere creation of designs on paper. I enjoyed exploring with colors, and making something pretty.

I thought, as the nights grew longer and I became more disillusioned with the increasingly paltry offerings on YouTube, why not? The fact that we have loads of paper and two boxes of little-used crayons that would otherwise sit idle for years, only served to spur me on.

And so, a few times a week, in the evening, I sit down at the table with a piece of paper and the markers and crayons, and I draw and color. Here's what I created the other night:

Drawing and coloring make for a nice rest away from the mental effort required for writing stories.

Speaking of that, you might be interested to know that I am around a quarter of the way finished with my third novel in my latest series, which will top off at four novels. It's another Christmas romance series, so I won't be releasing it until October, but sometime this summer I'll post the first chapter of the first book in the series, just to give you a taste. Follow this blog so you don't miss it!

In the meantime, why not sit down with some paper and a box of crayons one evening? You might be surprised at how joyful and grounding the activity of creating a colorful picture can be. Rediscover the artist you once knew you were before somebody told you otherwise!

Many blessings to you,

Emily Josephine