Cautious Creativity

Writer: Sydney Horne

Writing is a release, at least for me it always has been. I can speak my mind and pour raw, untapped emotions into stories. I can twist and mold the words however I want, to make it say what I want. To be able to make a scene come alive in a reader’s mind is one of my most prized talents, as I’m sure it is for every author. We can change “I walked through the woods” to “I treaded lightly across the forest floor, not wanting to disturb the wildlife around me. I winced with every step as my feet crushed the freshly fallen leaves. The weeds and plants tickled my legs as I brushed past them, and a soft breeze caressed my cheek.”

I do my best to make my writing stand out, put my own style on it, make a new saying, anything to make it just a little bit different. Every time I sit down to write I ask myself “How is this piece going to be different?” A lot of the times I get stuck and another question pops into my mind. “How do you force creativity?” I’ve always done my best work when I’m not even thinking about writing. My creativity comes in waves, I never learned how to force it, an idea will pop into my head and my mind takes off on its own, weaving a story and trying to move my fingers fast enough to keep up.

Soon my fingers will be flying across the keyboard, I finish up my last thought… and that’s it. The ideas stop, my fingers halt, hovering over the keys of my computer, the cursor will sit, blinking, and mocking me. My once frantic mind is as blank as my computer screen. The twists and turns that flowed so rapidly from my mind to my fingers in one fluent motion have stopped. As writers, our creativity gives us our individuality, our techniques, from our creativity flows our ideas and our inspiration

The question I’ve been asked the most about my book is “What inspired you to write this?” Everybody wants to know where my idea came from but the truth is it wasn’t anything special. When I was a little kid I loved to write short stories just for fun. Every single story was based on some random idea that popped into my head. Once I had where I wanted to start, my mind would take control and write until it ran out of things to write about. I have to admit I would love to ask any of my favorite authors how they came up with the ideas that would go on to become a best-selling book. It seems that most authors are able to answer that pretty easily, maybe they had a personal experience that sparked an idea, or they thought of a long lost nostalgic memory. For me, nine times out of ten, my inspiration is my imagination.

As a teenage author, I’ve gotten a head start on my writing journey, however I’m still years behind most people doing the same thing I’m doing. We live in a world that pressures you to be the same as everyone else, you have to fit in and be unison. Writing gives us an out, a way to be different, and a way to make a difference to everyone around you. But what would be even better, is to make a difference in the life of a writer. To have your work stand out to others who could quite possibly have more experience than you and have written hundreds of more stories. What about your work stood out to them? Your creativity. Your creativity that told you exactly what word to use and why, your ideas that made it different, that made it unique, that made it yours, your work. Your work that stood out and made a difference. That is perhaps the most important thing I have learned on my writing journey.

In a world that pressures you to be the same as everyone else, find a way to make your writing, and most importantly, make yourself stand out.

Sydney Horne is a teenage author previously published in GirlStory Magazine and she is working on her debut novel A Shattered World. She has always had a passion for books, which evolved into a love for writing fiction and poetry. Sydney continues to refine her craft and recently was selected to attend the Young Writer’s Conferences at Sewanee University. She currently resides in Charlotte, NC with her family and two dogs, Yogi and Reeces.

Website: Sydney Horne