What talent would you most like to have? What would you do with it?

This is an easy question.

Draw. I can’t draw to save my life. I can’t even draw a stick figure with someone standing in front of me as a model, much less draw people off the top of my head. Whether or not the 10,000 hour thing is correct or not, I’m pretty sure I’ve spent most of that trying to progress beyond crude stick figures. As much as I try, and I’ve had some private lessons from friends, but it’s like there is a mental block keeping me from progressing.

Which is a shame because the Internet is a visual medium.

If I was talented as an artist, I’d take all my novel ideas and turn them into webcomics. Some of them I would love t see sketched out. The Dreaded Day Job, for example, would be a great one to see done. Actually, I might try to turn that into a screenplay. When I write, I see everything like a movie in my head. Translating that visual image down onto paper (or tablet) is something I can’t do. In fact, my visual artistry is restricted to still photography – and I’m not very god at that when it comes to the editing of the photographs. I am trying to get better, but with everything I seem to have more things to do than time to do it in.

I should dust off the camera at some point, just take a day and say, “I’m going to do nothing but photograph stuff.” There is a junk yard near to my house, so I am not going to run out of subjects there (or diseases caught). I think I should try to cultivate photography as one of my few hobbies where my mania for writing can’t apply. I do play role playing games, but that ends up being a joyous exercise in character creation which turns into an excuse to build another novel. Almost all the books in my head started out as game characters.

Another talent I wish I had was music. I played guitar, but it was always that plateau I couldn’t surmount. I can appreciate music – despite what my detractors say about my taste – and I can play a very little bit. I just can’t make that leap to the next level. While I am willing to accept this more than my lack of visual artistic skills, it would be nice to be like Stephen King and rock out with the Rock Bottom Remainders.

Is it envy? Or is it more of a matter of the grass is always greener? I’ve had people tell me that they wish they could write. It’s not hard – just sit down and start. I guess that’s how other people feel when I say ‘I wish I could draw like you’ or some such. I think this Saturday, I’ll whip out the camera and take a small safari. If I want to get good at anything, I need to start.