Crossdressing & Creativity

[Phoebe Diana]

When I was growing up, there was no doubt in my mind what I was going to do for a living--I was going to be a writer. I have some talent. I have had some very good training. My life is set up to support writing as a possibility (my wife is also a writer). And I have been utterly and completely blocked for most of the last (*counts*) 17 years.

Until about a month ago, when Phoebe kicked and screamed and made me let her out.

Since then I've managed to actually get some writing done on a sustained basis. If that keeps up for another couple of weeks, then that will definitely be my longest productive period in those last 17 years. It seems pretty clear to me that Phoebe is the writer around here. (Not that I am usually dressed when I write--most of my writing currently gets done on my lunch break, so that wouldn't work anyway. But she's there.)

However...the nature of the writer's block beast is that it taunts you with "breakthroughs" that then turn out to be nothing in the end. So I was wondering what experience some of the others in this group had had with this. Has crossdressing had any effect on your level of creativity? (Positively or negatively.) If it has, was it a long-term effect or a short-term one? And I'm not just asking for "artists" to respond--all of us are creative at something.

And two quick notes--Phoebe's presence is not contingent on my writing. She doesn't get sent back to her room if she doesn't produce. And I am about at the point where I would roll in peanut butter and run through a forest full of hungry squirrels if it would get this one book written, so if all I have to do is let Phoebe play to get it done, well that's a double relief.

Phoebe

[Julie York]

I have writing experience and I can tell you that my creativity (or not) has no link at all to crossdressing. It is more related to how desperate I am to suceed and how broke I am at the time.

Writer's block is usually brought on by not having a clear idea of what your characters are trying to achieve. If you don't know what THEY do in the novel, then they just float about aimlessly dragging you down irelevant plot lines.

Also, if your brain is busy trying to solve other life problems it is usually hard to think creatively.

(And if you are finding writing difficult, rest assured it IS! That's normal.)

[Kimberly]

I write plays and scripts for television and film...... They're all words on paper which no one is interested in, so don't get any ideas about me!

But it's what I want to do as a side career to acting and directing on stage. Writing. I've already got thoughts in my head about writing a stylised piece of drama, using some of the stuff of 'Theatre of Cruelty' to portray the struggle us girls go through with accepting ourselves and getting the acceptance of others.

I wasn't going to start this project straight off - but I was going to ask many of you to contribute in any way possible: giving accounts, thoughts,feelings. Anything.

The hardest part will be trying to personify the "urge." Hehe.... seriously flamboyant drag queen, me thinks! :)

Good luck, creatively, girls.

In response to the original question: My creativity has been enabled by the way I am. I believe that if I didn't have a strong feminine side, I wouldn't be who I am today, and I certainly wouldn't be as creative. But it has never directly affected me.

[StephanieCD]

First, a recommendation. Read The Artist's Way
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0874776945/102-6196102-4927352?v=glance

I've always been the most creative sane person I know - with one exception and I was there when they checked him in. I've tried to connect the two many times. I recently decided to get into abstract painting while in drag. No reason.

I've found the following corrolation between MY creativity and my dressing: My ability to accept my crossdressing comes and goes in waves - whatever affects those waves appears to also be attached to my creativity.

Years ago I was a performing songwriter. I was doing quite well on the local circuit. Went through a life change. Purged all my femme stuff, went into depression, stopped writing, stopped drawing, stopped creating in general - including the "painting" of myself as a woman - I died inside. It took many years to rebuild and I'm still only a shadow of the expressive self I once was. But I couldn't really start rebuilding until I forced myself to deal with my feelings about being a crossdresser - now, with that out of the way, I'm more creative every day.

[Samantha Jane]

I have a version of writers block!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sadly however I'm dressed, it makes little difference to my creative jucies, certainly in respect my attempt to write a novel and one which has so far taken up seven years of my life. On paper I have 200,000 words, but I must have deleted a million more.

I'm sure have the revise/re-write syndrome. I know my characters and I thought I knew my plot, but as I re-read through my book I'm inclined to make frequent changes (it's so frustrating). If I have not written for a period of time, I have to familiarise myself with what I have written thus far and then comes yet more alterations, as I think to myself, perhaps I could have described this or that better. Therefore it creates a knock on effect as the book has fairly complicated plot, so one change tends to create a ripple that affects the whole story.

So once I have re-written all the changes, I find little or no will to progress much further and so as a consequence it creates an eternal loop.

I have given myself an optimistic target of completing the book by the time I am 50 and at 45, if I reach my goal it will have taken 12 years to complete. May be this is some kind of record. :) :)

Perhaps I was never meant to be a writer, but I do love playing with words and as I do enjoy writing, it maybe that subconsciously I do not want to really finish the book.

Samantha xx

[miss Zaskia]

Think a certain amount of imagination is needed to go for the transvestism/crossdressing-thing to begin with. In my opinion the main reason for the fact that so many of us are in the creative arts. Was(and again am) the frontman/singer songwriter of Holland's nr.1 hardcore-punkband. I paint and do a lot of animation and comics at the moment. Dabbled in just about everything art-connected. :cool:

[AbbyLee]

Good evening phoebe,

I too am a writer, prose, playwriting, screeenwriting. I did my MFA work at one of the most prestigous writing programs in the country. I also have taught creative writing. For me there is no direct relationship between my writing and dressing. Dressing and embracing my female persona, has enabled me to write from a female perspective in a far more understanding and sensitive way than most. I also had a several year hiatus from writing. This was due to family and job requirments. If you feel that your writers block has been ovecome by 'staying in touch' with your feminine self; then it has. Some other things that have worked for me are: sitting at the keyboard and begin typing whatever comes to mind (the physical act itself may generate what you need, begin revising something that you wrote all of those years ago, begin typing (copying the work of one of your favorite writers). Finally, the key to successful writing is not as much about creativity as it is hard work and revising, revising, and more revising. I have worked at alot of things and have been successfully quite creative and innovative. But, by far the hardest work I have ever done was write. Again if you believe that your female persona has overcome your block; then it has.

Contra Campa

AbbyLee