mary mac made that

Welcome to part two of my meet the maker introductory series. Part one introduced you to who I am, my background, and the passion I hope to bring to this blog and the kidlit community. In this post, I want to talk how I’ve been working on defining my creative identity.

First, let’s define “creative identity”. I see creative identity is an ongoing process of defining yourself as a creator through your personal artistic style, your values, and your consistent practices.

Identifying myself as a creator, and more specifically a children’s book creator, helps me stay on track and prioritize the kind of works I create. From there, all I need is action (the physical work of making) and reflection (the interpersonal work of understanding what I made and why). Having a combination of all these things helps me build a unique voice and “style” in the children’s publishing niche.

Our creativity identity isn’t fixed. It shifts over time based on our experiences, our personal growth, and how we change. It’s important to note that because our creative identity isn’t some fixed, tangible thing, that we have to emphasize our art as a “journey” rather than focus on a particular output. We have to think about this as picking a starting point rather than seeing this as the end product.

Our creative identity is deeply rooted in our personal history, preferences, and core beliefs, and when we can define it based on where we’re at now in our journey, then we can foster a genuine and authentic connection with our audience.

Another key factor about being a creative is making something because we want to not because we feel like we “have to” or “should”.

In my opinion, creative accomplishment comes from small wins every day, and so does self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is believing in your ability to accomplish the goals you’ve set for yourself.

So, to develop your creative identity, to feel creative accomplishment, and to start believing in your ability to “do the thing”, you have to start with action and reflection.

Action and reflection go hand in hand

Even when you don’t think you’re doing something that matters, when you look back over time, you’ll realize how even the smallest thing has added up to help you build your creative identity.

For example, I collect books. I don’t have a massive library, but I do have a lot of books. And the majority of the books I own are about art – watercolor, lettering, drawing, writing, watercolor, more writing, and more watercolor.

When I was a kid, I enjoyed telling stories. I would just sit and write. As a teenager, storytelling became more visual as I drew more than I wrote. Despite not pursing animation as a career, like I originally intended, I continued to write creatively and visualize concepts throughout my marketing career. That innate part of me never left. I also learned a very important thing about the arts which is that it’s not just about making pretty pictures or writing pretty prose, it’s about problem solving, innovation, iteration, and analysis – all incredibly important skills needed in the 21st century workforce.

Now I get to take a step back and solve a new problem for myself which is creating art for consumers through publishing. I know I can solve this problem because I’ve been solving problems, iterating, innovating, and analyzing for the past 10 years. Which means that no matter which direction this creative journey takes me (and it can be many!) I’ve had enough creative accomplishment over the years to know that this isn’t the end. This isn’t “it”, “final”, or “complete” or any other scary terms you can throw at creatives, it’s the beginning (a beginning of many beginnings I’m sure).

Prioritizing our preferences

I read a blurb from a book once about how this woman created a “meter of caring”, and I loved the concept so much that I developed my own. As a creative person, I have many interests, many things I want to do and create, mediums I want to try, products I want to create and sell, stories I want to tell, etc. And before I know it, I get overwhelmed and procrastinate HARD.

Two things came out of this meter of caring. One, I’m able to take new ideas and compare it to my meter to determine if it’s something I really want to try or if it’s just “shiny”. The second, is that by comparing everything to this meter, I can then revisit my “why” of my creative identity to determine if it fits the kind of creative I want to be. This helps me narrow things down and prioritize the things I really want to try or do based on my overarching goal of children’s book publishing.

Here’s a crude graphic I made of how the meter of caring works

I’ll give you some examples from my ever growing “home of bright ideas” box. I go through this box occasionally and compare everything to this meter of caring. If it makes it into the “I care” pile, I create a Trello board for it to start setting goals and organize my thoughts surrounding the idea. If I “somewhat care” or “could care more” I throw it back into my ideas box to revisit at another time because I don’t want to take on too many projects and get overwhelmed. If it makes it into the “I don’t care” pile, I’ll do a horrific thing and throw the piece of paper in the trash, and ruminate on the idea for the next 3-5 business months.

But all of this is in an effort to overcome my perfectionism – specifically that feeling that I have to be excellent at everything in life instead of a select few things. Letting go is not an easy thing to do as a creative, but I have a lot of faith, and I trust that my journey is my own and when I focus on the things I really care about or that I know I’m naturally good at and could improve, it makes my time feel that much more abundant, and my journey that much more fulfilling.

Defining our core beliefs/values

This is another point I mentioned at the beginning of the post as part of developing our creative identity. There are a ton of resources available online about defining your core values, so I won’t go down that rabbit hole. Basically the idea is to find 3-5 words that are meaningful and powerful in your life. 3-5 things that matter most to you, the kinds of things you want to do in life, or the feelings you want to put out into the world or have for yourself, or just generally defining the kind of person you want to be.

James Clear and Brené Brown have some great lists to choose from, so I recommended checking those out.

For me, choosing my core values wasn’t just about defining myself or the person I wanted to be or thought I could be. I wanted the values I chose to reflect the kind of love and light I wanted to put into the world through writing and art.

I’m not sure how often it is necessary to revisit your core values, but I will review mine every year to see if they still reflect what I want to put into the world.

The core values I chose for 2026 are creativity, humor, and authenticity. In January, I decided that I wanted to make more time to be creative this year – write more, create more, drawn and paint more. I also decided that no matter how “serious” my art looked, I wanted and needed to inject a little humor. I’m a light hearted person and creating something beautiful, whimsical, and a little witty is exactly who I am as a person. Which leads to my last core value of authenticity. For me, my creative journey is a personal and spiritual journey. It’s an opportunity for me to get to know who I am, and to also walk and co-create with my Creator. Two very important things in my life. I want to know more about the person God has designed me to be, as well as have an active relationship and conversation with Him. I feel like the more I create with Him, the more I know Him, know myself, and know the kind of mom, wife, and person I need to be.

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Thanks for reading this post! I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. What are your core values? How have you defined your creative identity? What creative journey are you on?