What is Creative Inklin'?

There is a good chance that this should have been my first post . . . Oops! You live and you learn, I suppose. It's been a while since I've had a real blog, ok? But my internet habits aren't the point here - not today, at least. Today, I'm giving a proper welcome/introduction to my blog. That's right! If you're here, I'm assuming my first post didn't totally scare you off. I appreciate it. So lets talk about what Creative Inklin' actually is.

This is a bit of a mix between personal project, social experiment, and maybe one day a business. Who knows what the future holds? I certainly had no clue how things would develop when I started a hobby three-ish years ago. And that's all it was supposed to be.

You see, I've been reading all my life. Like, forget to eat, not sleep, bring a book everywhere at all times kind of word addiction. So when I was a pre-teen, the obvious next step seemed to be writing books for myself. I wrote often and what seemed like a lot, but I never actually completed a manuscript. I took a creative writing class in high school, I have participated in NaNoWriMo events every year since 2000-something, and I even entered a writing contest and won a Kindle . . . But I never quite crossed the finish line. Then one day I was introduced to blackout poetry, and I decided to give it a try.

In case you don't know, blackout or found poetry is often a bit of a mix between poetry and a visual art form. It involves taking a block of text and singling out words to create a poem or phrase or sentence of the creator's choosing. Usually, a black marker is then used to outline the selected words and render the rest unreadable. It can be challenging, there are different degrees of difficulty, and people can limit themselves in other ways to up that struggle. But I loved it instantly.

Now a quick note: My personal books have all always been sacred and protected - never loaned out, not a single mark or bent page, as good as new. (In fact, after having a well-loved, misprinted book for three years, I finally decided to return it and get an actually completed copy. The teller at the book store thought I had bought it the same week and had only just realized the issue because it was otherwise in perfect condition.) I sometimes even refused to write in workbooks and textbooks. So blackout poetry was quite out of character for me.

All the same, I selected a book that I kinda hated (I'm not calling anyone out, but if you're curious, you can check out my Instagram or TikTok to figure it out yourself.), and gave it a try. For about three years, I worked at it, rarely telling family or friends, but eventually I decided to post it to a "secret" Instagram account to see if anyone would find my work interesting. (If you guessed my username is Creative Inklin' - kudos!) And slowly I developed my style. And slowly I started to get followers from a bunch of places. Eventually, my sister convinced me to start a TikTok account to show my process.

And while this was all happening, I was still writing. I mostly stuck to attempts at novels and the occasional essay or blog idea, but I was reading a bunch of poetry at the time. Eventually I had a thought. If I like poetry, and I practice blackout poetry, and people actually LIKE what I share, why not challenge myself to write my own poetry with no source material? So I set myself a test: Try to write one poem every day for a year based off a prompt from something I overheard or that was said to me that day. I started with enthusiasm and determination.

Then about three months in, I totally failed. I kept collecting daily quotes for inspiration, but I didn't always or even usually write the poems day of. Actually, I accrued more prompts than needed, started writing poems just because, and managed to drag the whole process on for about three years. Until finally, I had enough. I was at a somewhat emotionally turbulent time in my life and I decided I needed a win, needed to see something through and feel that accomplishment. So I gathered every single poem I had written over those three years.

I edited, discarded, rearranged, hacked, pasted, and otherwise mutilated my poetry. Then I started arranging them. It was a long and weary and systematic and not at all inspiring procedure that I will maybe leave for another blog post. But on the other side of those sleepless nights and zombie days, I emerged with three full-length poetry manuscripts. And I had previously only been that proud about three times in my life.

So, that's why we're here! A hobby turned into a challenge that became a dream that is now, once again, a challenge. Because I'm not just letting those manuscripts sit there. I'm working to get them published. I started this blog and the forums as a way to grow this beyond just a couple social media accounts and into a creative community.

And that's what Creative Inklin' is in a nutshell. Thanks for checking it out, and I hope you stick around for the journey forward!