The last few weeks had been a bit odd for me. My creativity had been stifled. Sometimes life gets in the way, and I need to reset. Thankfully, I had some holiday due from work, so I used it to visit my brother in Cheshire. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
My brother surprised me when he got out his old Subbuteo set from his loft. I spent hours on end playing this tabletop soccer game in my bedroom as a teenager. Now, here I was again revisiting my youth. My brother beat me 1-0 in the game we played, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that we were kids again having fun.
On another day, we visited the town of Stockport. Here, I found a comic book store that stocked old copies of my favourite comics I’d read growing up. Normally, the comic book stores I visit are full of Marvel and DC Comic titles, as well as manga and other publications. They’re all great, but here for the first time ever I found titles such as ‘Buster’ and ‘Whizzer and Chips’ – firm British staples of my childhood that are sadly no longer published. Suddenly, I was transported back to Saturday mornings in the mid-80s when I’d run down the local shops and buy a big pile of comics and read through them again and again before school came round again on Monday.
I bought a few copies, and have been laughing my head off ever since.
Comics were so instrumental in me wanting to become a writer as they opened up endless worlds of storytelling and possibility to me. It was good to reminisce about this.
The result of all this is that the power of nostalgia has fuelled my creativity again. I’ve now got a pocketful of ideas for short stories that I’ve begun working on. Plus, I’ve also got a new tactic if I get writer’s block again.
If you’re creativity is lacking, remembering the hobbies you had a child could be one way to help you.
I hope you all have a great and creative week. ☺️