TMZ: Creator

No, I’m not the Creator. But I am a creator.

I love that the God of the Universe created, well, the universe, and then the universe in turn creates things ourselves. Blows my mind.

People are so talented and gifted and creative. Seriously, how did we ever come up with automobiles or guitars or haikus? How did we splice together enough scenes to compile a mind-bending film, or string together enough words to craft an epic novel?

We inherited the creating gene from our Creator, that’s how.

I’ve been creating stories since I was a wee lad. I distinctly remember one night at my old house in Pennsylvania when I was suddenly overtaken by my first creative wave: I wanted to write a book. I asked my grandmother how long chapters were, just so I wasn’t going into this high pursuit totally blind. And after a day or two (three, max), I’d compiled my first book.

Invisible Johnny, it was called. Wrote the entire thing on blank paper and even did the artwork for the front cover. Check out this thing of beauty:

Yes, I misspelled “Invisible.” And “Johnny.” Or maybe I did this intentionally? Could be something vital in the story that prompted these misspellings; I shan’t spoil it though. Regardless, I guess my first work should technically be written as Invisble Jonny. My grandfather made copies for my entire family and just like that, I was a writing celebrity.

Sadly, Invisble Jonny never made it to your local Borders before Borders, well, defaulted.

Moment of silence for Borders.

As a child I went on to write two other books that I distributed to my family, and I wrote many other stories in notebooks that thus far I’ve only shared with myself. It’s mind-boggling that I never revisited this story-writing passion from my early years until my sophomore year in college when I finally decided upon an English major.

After I graduated with said degree in 2009, I set to work on a novel that had been percolating in my soul for years. Knocked out several drafts over the next year and have since started a second novel among other stories.

I love stories; I love writing stories. And I long for the day when you can indeed find something by Thomas Mark Zuniga at your local Borders e-reader. But alas, that’s a post for another day. A day for dreamers.

I’m a creator; a writer. Every now and then I’ll be running at the park or driving home from tutoring or lying awake in bed when a new idea launches into my eye sockets at full-throttle and I’ll have to jot it down somewhere before it scurries from sight.

I love those captured revelation moments.

As for this blog, I may be inspired now and then to post some of my creations for you to read. I’m not sure what this process might look like exactly, but rest assured you’ll eventually get a taste of the creator side of TMZ.

That is, if you don’t “count” my blog posts as creations themselves. Hmm.

As you yourself were created, go and create; the world needs our creations.