Why didn’t this occur to me sooner?
Did you play pretend as a child? I did.
More often than not, I played alone in my yard than with other children. I have very few memories of my childhood, mostly vague recollections of friends, acquaintances, and companions. Yet I remember more of the play I undertook as a child.
The big picture window in the living room of the home I lived in until I was maybe 6 years old was the viewscreen of my starship. From there, I went on missions, flew my spacecraft to many adventures, and pretended I was a brave and daring space captain.
The swingset of the home I lived in from about age 6 to age 14 or 15 was my starfighter. I flew against TIE Fighters, Cylons, and various other imagined enemy combatants. In my pretend play, I made Luke Skywalker and Starbuck look like amateurs. Oh, the adventures I went on. I don’t remember any, but they most definitely happened.
Star Wars has always been my jam. I had a broad collection of action figures, vehicles, playsets, and so on. Actually, I still have most of them in boxes (that I should like to sell, really). Long, long before the sequels, I played out adventures for Luke, Han, Leia, Chewie, and the droids on all kinds of wild adventures.
I played pretend a lot as a child, in many different ways. When I think about it, it’s no surprise to me that my imagination led me to become a writer.
Taking storytelling to the next level
I wrote my first sci-fi book at age 9. Wildfire is 50 pages, illustrated, and a complete story. It will never see the light of day, though as a kid I tried to get it published. I still have an incredibly encouraging rejection letter (my dad was a huge help with that endeavor).
More stories followed, some complete and some incomplete. I gave up illustrating (my profiles of characters never had noses) and moved on to typing when I got my first computer (circa 1985). Writing continued in fits and spurts throughout college, then into my 20s and 30s. In the mid to late 1990s, I began my Source Chronicles fantasy series. This would lead to me finding my first editor, who taught me more about the craft – in addition to editing – than I could possibly thank her for.
When the pandemic hit in 2020, I realized that I wanted to make more of my storytelling. Getting down to business, over the next few years I would write, edit, and self-publish over a dozen novels. I took my lifelong penchant for storytelling to the next level.
Here I am now, producing more imaginative worlds, characters, and situations. I have 4 complete books in my queue, one edited, one at the editor, and a third that I’m doing my edits on. There are more stories I’m working on to one degree or another.
What’s more, all of these worlds of my imagination are, in many ways, as alive and real as the world around me. Hence, it occurs to me that writing is playing pretend as an adult.
Playing pretend empowers
As we get older, playing pretend fades out. New things take its place, like school, work, building new families, and more. People don’t play pretend much beyond their teen years, and most who do are looked upon as being off.
Yet, when you get down to it, writing fiction is the adult form of playing pretend, It’s the process of taking the imagination and turning it into something real. The stories I told myself, or played out on my swingset, now find their way to the screen and page.
Not all that I write gets shared. Sometimes that’s because I can’t get past a certain point or beyond more than a basic notion. Other times, it’s half-formed at best and never moves past that. Still, the act of creation and writing my stories is empowering.
Why? Because I’m doing what brings me joy and creating worlds that I think others might also desire to visit. That’s empowering because it utilizes my creativity, imagination, and gives me a place to put my thoughts and feelings into action.
Ergo, practice mindfulness. I don’t create stories and write them out subconsciously. Playing pretend is action. Conscious action. Conscious action is mindfulness in practice.
This not only applies to writing fiction. It also applies to all the arts you can imagine, as well as any creative enterprises. When you’re empowered, you’re more awake and able to make choices and decisions beyond creating things. You’re empowered to turn elements of playing pretend into reality on many levels.
Visualization is also playing pretend as an adult
I’ve long believed that consciousness creates reality. When you act on your goals and give thought, feeling, and intent to your actions, you are actively consciously creating.
While writing fiction, painting, drawing, and other arts are not everyone’s passion or joy, visualization is available to all. You can envision yourself in places, situations, and doing things that make your life how you most desire it to be.
You have that power, despite all the bullshit messages to the contrary. Maybe you’re not a creative in the sense of being an author, sculptor, visual artist, or the like. But everyone is creative in their own way.
That might manifest in gardening, child-rearing, organizing, project managing, science, or anywhere else you can think of. You are creative, even when you don’t believe that to be true.
One of the best ways, apart from art, for playing pretend as an adult is visualization. This can be done in your mind alone, by making lists, and/or creating a vision board.
The biggest takeaway for me is this: playing pretend isn’t something to end with adulthood. It’s imagination brought to life, and everyone needs imagination for their health, wellness, and wellbeing. Playing pretend is empowering because it’s taking action that leads to creating, whatever form that might take for you, art or otherwise.
Thanks for reading. As I share my creative journey with you, I conclude with this: How are you inspired to be your own creator – whatever form that takes?
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