We were lucky to catch up with Crystal Green recently and have shared our conversation below.

Crystal, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?

I used to wish that I’d started my creative career sooner but these days I understand that I am exactly where I am supposed to be and that every experience that I’ve had has brought me here. But that mindset wasn’t always easy to turn on. I’d get caught up comparing my journey to others’ and I’d make myself feel awful because where I was wasn’t where it looked like they were, and where they were looked like where I thought I should be. I’d beat myself up pretty badly. But if I’d actually started my career sooner, I wouldn’t be able to tell the stories that I tell in the way that I tell them because I simply wouldn’t have become the woman that I’ve become.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’ve been a writer for as long as I can remember, initially as a hobby, later for creative expression and therapeutic purposes and ultimately as a career. My first “writing as a career” pursuit came nine years ago, when I wrote my first of what would be several digital series screenplays, ‘Young, Broke and Married,’ which I also produced and directed. From that came 125 poetic short stories, 10 short film screenplays, 8 short films, 2 spin-off digital series, 3 feature-length screenplays, numerous original television pilots, two published books and a variety of published articles and blog posts.

I’m most proud of my newly released book, ‘Lavender Lily’ – a psychological thriller loosely inspired by my experience with postpartum depression after the birth of my son. Adapted from an original feature-length screenplay, ‘Lock the Door,’ ‘Lavender Lily’ tells the story of Lauren, a successful author turned new mother, whose seemingly perfect life flips upside down when she finds herself unexpectedly cast as the star in her very own psychological thriller. The book, although rooted in a fictionalized world, features a hearty cumulation of a lifetime of intimate experiences – some I’ve witnessed or observed, most I’ve personally lived.

I think one thing that sets me apart from others is my willingness to persist, no matter what. For some reason or another, I’m often misperceived as perfect, which couldn’t be further from the truth. I struggle, I fight my battles on a daily basis and I’ve survived my fair share of some of the most soul-crushing experiences imaginable, but I refuse to stop pursuing my dreams.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Growing up, I was shown, and perhaps unintentionally taught, that success as a human being meant growing up, getting a good job, making ends meet, vacationing domestically once a year – at most, then retiring some fifty years later. I was led to believe that suffering was inevitable, expected even, and that once this life had ended, a great reward would be waiting for me, making a lifetime of pain and misfortune somehow worth it.

But my personal experiences have shown me that life doesn’t have to be this way, I don’t have to wait to be happy and although detours and construction will come, I can live the life I want on my terms, not my ancestor’s, who respectfully, had a whole other set of battles to overcome. I spend every day of my life unlearning these lessons and fighting the odds stacked against me because I refuse to settle and I refuse to raise children who believe that settling is an option.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

I think that society has come a long way in the way that art and creativity are viewed. These days, artists may feel supported by their relatives when they express their dreams and some might even be raised to believe that making a living off of their art is a viable path to pursue. But we still have a long way to go.

I think that artistic expression is just as important as reading and writing and multiplication and division and considerably less important than memorizing every U.S. president or the historical lies that we’ve all been led to believe. But, as we all know, when educational spending must be cut, arts education is the first to go. Why is that? Far too many of our children are walking through school hallways carrying burdens much heavier than loaded backpacks and more often than we’re proud of, they turn to unhealthy habits to numb their pain. But what happens when you give someone permission to relieve the pressure with words, music or painting? You give them the courage to cope and the confidence to continue on in spite of.

I think that if more of our children are encouraged to express themselves creatively while simultaneously being taught how to sustain themselves financially, the world will be a much healthier place to exist in.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.CrystalEGreen.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/crystale.green/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheCrystalEGreen/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/crystal-e-green-76948362
• Other: www.ReadLavenderLily.com