A simple little thing called Failure... | 08.05.2017

Little thing called Failure

08.05.2017

Yes, yes here we are. Weeks go by and not a word has come out of my fingertips. A paralysing snowball effect of a lack of self-discipline has brought me to a very familiar place. A cocktail of procrastination, self-deprecation, and well…failure. 

Then again, failure is what you make of it. That’s the comforting thing. I have failed allot, I mean allot allot in my life. And I don’t regret a second of it. It’s painful, it’s humiliating, but it’s what you need to grow. It’s the grand storm that weeds out the weak and evolves the strong. 

It smacks you with a big unforgiving sign that says “You’re human, this is who you are!” and expects you to deal with it. I love it, in the most peculiar way. 

At fist I could only see the bad in the dark cycle of failing, I kept characterising it as pure evil. After that, I switched. I refused to see the wrong in it, only saw it as a teacher, a good thing, a necessity. Both are not fair, and I’d not be seeing it for what it was. It’s a swirl-wind of good and bad, not any better or any worse than it truly is.

I can do one of two things. Recoil, let this ‘project’/experiment simmer out, take the failure for what it is. Run away and find something else, something new and shiny and pursue that. 

Or. I can admit, I can confess that I failed to be consistent, that I neglected to continue writing, that I found something ‘hard’. That this is a learning curve, a path up a gruelling mountain. A path that for others seems so natural, a road of which I have realised that, I did not do the right preparation for. 

Sometimes I wonder why it’s so hard to admit that you failed. Maybe it’s the acknowledgement that makes it so real. It’s all well and good hiding from it, but at the end of the day, it’s always going to be there. It’s not going to just fuck off, just because it’s a little inconvenient or a little embarrassing.

Ultimately this is and is going to be, a long lesson in self-discipline and consistency. Something I want to be better at. Yes, I’ll probably keep stumbling and falling for a while. But at some point I’ll get stronger and better. As long as I remain honest with myself and honest with the world I should be fine…hopefully.

1. The Concept | Creative Process | 13.04.2017

The Concept

13.04.2017

Today I’d love to write about something really close to me. Creativity, and the process that comes with creation.

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Creating is so personal. Such an open and brave thing to do when you think of it.
The creative process is a bit like cooking…or the creation of a human.

It’s not all butterflies and happiness. During the periods of time when I’m not fixated on a creative idea, or in the process of creating, I often romanticise creativity.

I romanticise the feeling of an idea, the process of developing sed idea. I imagine it as one of the most beautiful and peaceful and happy things one could do with their lives…

And then, without warning, a 3 AM phone call arrives from my brain. The cogs, which barely got enough rest from their last use, start turning again, the buttons in my brains get prepared to be pushed, and everything else falls away.

Sleep is no longer relevant; food is no longer relevant. Any possible conceived thought is pushed aside, and instead, a loop is put into place of one scenario, or a character, or that one specific shot. 
It’s almost like torture, watching that one scene over and over and over. Every time you think you’ll see just a little more it goes back to where it started. It feels like you’re strapped to a chair forced to watch this, by yourself, and your shouting questions constantly, with no reply…

The idea is teasing you, showing a little flesh, enough to excite, but not enough to gratify. 
This can go on for anywhere between half an hour to a few days, weeks or at it’s longest for me personally, a month.

Finally, the need to know more will become too overwhelming, the need to push past this ever looping shot. 
The idea wins, I take the bate and hunker down. (Usually involving tea and a laptop, and no other human beings)

As ideas start to rapid fire, all competing to be the most important, the ecstasy, the passion starts to simmer, and the adrenaline slowly begins to bubble. The pressure builds, and eventually, the lid on your brain can’t take the strain anymore and the ‘outpour’ starts, I start writing…finally.

After the initial pouring out of the idea, climax if you will, that’s when the work starts. 
You befriend your characters and get to know them. You familiarise yourself with your surroundings within the story, the world in which your concept has manifested itself. 

You have to work hard to iron out plot, character, the lifeline of the idea so to say… All of this from that one initial seedling that kicked you into gear. 
You have to find answers to questions, and you have to find questions to answers.

This can be hard, tiring, frustrating, heartbreaking, annoying. It can drive you crazy, and then at the same time make you feel so happy, so proud. You’re the mother of this one concept, you’re growing it, but ultimately, with the huge risk of sounding a bit silly, it is growing itself. 

Once your concept baby has fully grown, finished and rounded off. Perfected to ultimate satisfaction. That’s when the scary part comes…the part that terrifies me, but is so necessary. 
It’s downright scary. 
The release of the concept…production.
More on that later…
 

Mind Blob | 12.04.2017

Mind Blob

12.04.2017

I’m writing a proper mind blob today. It’ll contain; rambling, a lack of consistency and no estimated point to be made…enjoy…

I was going to write something about looking around and not listening to music, but I ended up feeling like an old man yelling at a cloud (referencing The Simpsons).
So instead I started writing a post, challenging myself to not use the words I, me or myself. I realised that I needed more time to make that work, so I stopped.

So instead I felt myself drooping, I felt that bubbly feeling of procrastination tantalising my brain.
Whilst the thoughts of giving up were quietly hinting. 

This is a post to expose those feelings I guess. My aim by no means was to set up a perfect blog that would attract millions of middle-aged, wine sipping and interesting woman, or whatever other stereotype one would expect on a high-quality blog.
My aim was and is to just create consistently and challenge myself. 

I have a tendency to be a tidbit of a perfectionist and expect far to much of myself, which is a good thing, it pushes me to get the absolute best of myself, but also makes me feel very bad when I think I might not be doing well enough.

It’s important to ignore these feelings and just push through, tell that voice to ‘fuck off’ and just keep on striding forward…

Easier said than done…

It can be paralysing sometimes. I say sometimes, but I actually mean, allot of the times…take this post, as blatantly ‘easy’ as it would seem to be, to write a post about not being able to write posts still feels wrong and makes me want to crawl away. 

Maybe I’m right, maybe the big scary coach in my brain, yelling at me that I’m doing everything wrong is correct, but again, to do it the right way was never my purpose. All I wanted, and expect from myself is to do. To just simply do. How bad, how embarrassing it may be, just create and share. To not be scared of what people might think because quality will come with time, all I have to focus on now is consistency…

So yeah, I feel like I just needed to expose those feelings, not pretend like I had/have everything under control. Because I don’t. It’s not easy. But then again, if it was easy, it wouldn’t be a challenge. I wouldn’t be doing this, I wouldn't be feeling the eerie chill of the vast scape outside the comfort zone. 

So, in short, I’m proud. I’m proud that I feel stuck. However strange that may be. I’m proud that I almost feel paralysed under the challenge, that can only mean it’s working. 

Monologue; Soldier K | 10.04.2017

Monologue

10.04.2017

"This is a tale of a soldier. A brave man he was, always stood up for his friends, his colleagues, his boss, even the odd man on the street, he would find respect for. Soldier K we shall call him."

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I want to dedicate Mondays to creative writing. In a script, short story, monologue type of way. So to start that off, I'd like to share a monologue I wrote, about a soldier. It's best to read this in a voice of 'that one mysterious old cowboy sitting in a misty bar'. 

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This is a tale of a soldier. A brave man he was, always stood up for his friends, his colleagues, his boss, even the odd man on the street, he would find respect for. Soldier K we shall call him. He’s a soldier of the people, a man, a woman, a human fucking being. He’s a soldier that wouldn’t stop at the hand of the government, but wouldn’t go at the hand of himself. He was troubled you could say. K had been a great inspiration to me, the importance he lead in my life, the importance he lead in anybodies life he touched, he was a special man, woman or human.

He was a troubled person, battled many battles with himself with others and with the world. Forced to perceive the world in a censored way, only others would want him to see it. Never truly free, yet let to believe he was a bird, free as the wind blows. He was a smart camper though, he knew he wasn’t truly free, but he didn’t care, he just kept on chugging along as life flew him by. 

One day, K ran into a boy, girl or young human being. This child looked at him with eyes so wide they could absorb the world. He stood there mesmerised, looking into these curious eyes, seeing what these eyes have seen, in the way they had seen them. No censors, no judgement, no barriers what so ever, just pure and raw curiosity. K could not help but stare, stare at the world through those eyes see new things, be more curious than he had ever been. It was a burning that no suppression, censoring or judgement could kill. A fire lit in K’s soul. 

Trees were no longer just trees, they were roots leaves, growth, veins a symbol of the sheer ability of life in this universe. A plastic bottle was no longer just a plastic bottle it was an opportunity to obscure the world around, bend, frame and look at life in a purely unapologetically different way.

Fear of questioning was burnt up by the flame of curiosity. Everything needed questioning, everything demanded an answer. Why? What? Who? Where? Everything K had done in life turned around and stared blankly into his eyes. Why did he do the things that he had done? The questions weren’t asked with judgement, the questions weren’t asked to darken K, they were asked to enlighten him. He didn’t just question himself. He questioned others. What’s the purpose of that human holding a pen? Why is that person looking up? Where is that human being going?

Every answer answered was wood to the fire, continuing the burning sensation to know more. Slowly but surely K realised he was not a bird, he was not free like the wind. He was a human Being. Free as the questions he had. 

The realisation that he was being censored was his biggest weapon towards the box built around him in his life. Knowledge really is power. I’m not talking about book knowledge, I’m talking about world knowledge, and appreciation. The ability to not judge, the ability to not look at the world in a one dimensional way. 

K was not brave. K was a human being. K questioned the world, K questioned life, questioned other humans, other animals, even nature and even the god damn universe. This does not make K profound, this does not make K an intellectual, this does not make K special. This makes K a human fucking being.

The smallest knife on the block | 07.04.2017

07.04.2017

I have 3 ‘sharp’ ‘non-stick’ knives. All from the same brand, these should be “the good knives”, the preferred knives, if you will.
And yet, even with the simplest vegetable, fruit or meat, I find myself struggling to hack through anything. And my goodness do they stick, it’s almost as if the whole meal decides to manifest itself on the back of the knife.
Still, I tend to come back to these knives again and again. Struggling, over and over, and why? Well, they’re the ‘sharpest’ and most ‘non-sticky’ knives on the block…right?

I find myself doing that allot. Falling back to something because I ‘should’, or because that’s the most ‘logical’ choice, the one I’m ‘supposed’ to make. Despite the fact that it may do more harm than good.

Now that I think of it, that’s the definition of insanity; repeating something under the exact same circumstances expecting a different outcome. Perhaps I’m just a little insane, but hey, a little insanity is like kindling to the creative brain, right?

On the flip side, this is an excellent way to practice more creative problem-solving. To look further than the supposed boundaries, to live/think outside the, societally constructed, ‘box’.

This concept excites me. Nothing makes my pupils dilate, my heart race and my brain tingle more that the challenge of creative thinking. Well, okay, some things might make me do that a little more, but this is definitely, 100%, not the environment to talk about that kind of thing…

This is something I already do by nature; noticing the small things, the medium things and the big things. Noticing the way they interact, the way they move, the tiniest detail and the largest detail, and then, subsequently, connecting the dots. 

That’s what creative problem solving is to me, connecting the dots of seemingly unrelated things, to create a new way of looking at one certain thing.

This brings me back to the knives. After not having washed my dishes for a while, because, well, I’m a young person living on my own, I believe it’s in my contract to be messy, and have lot’s of dirty dishes, I had to resort to the small, unused knife that I had hiding away amongst the teaspoon, symbolising its status. 

It turns out that that one little knife was, and is, an estimated 5 million times sharper and more stick resistant that all the other knives combined. Putting me in my place for not thinking of the little one earlier, because, well, as mentioned, it was the little knife in the teaspoon drawer.

The same reflects on other situations in life. Like when story writing; not thinking of a certain character, because he/she is so minor, or not giving a certain line as part of a dialogue because, well that could be a little out there. When editing, and not even considering adding a certain shot, or deleting a certain scene, because, well, it’s ‘supposed’ to be there..

Anyway, my point is, that in lots of situations in life there will be a metaphorical, little knife in a teaspoon drawer. You just need to have a wee look around, and maybe not do your dishes for a while. 

Or, you know, you could also actually have good knives and not be insane like me…one of the two…

The Deep End | 05.04.2017

The Deep End

05.04.2017

Writing, storytelling, concept making. Those are all things within my comfort zone.
But when I thought about blogging I felt my insides immediately screeching and trying to run away…to me, that feeling is a big bright sign saying “Continue doing this”
however uncomfortable it may feel right now.

Blogging is inherently a creative strain, you have to consistently create. 
Consistency. A word that stands at the core of what scares me. 

Consistency is not my forté. It has never been my forté, and I doubt it’ll ever be my…forté. 

Still…jumping into the deep end, not knowing what to expect, just with the knowledge
that I might drown, has always kind of been my style.

So here it is, my big creative plunge into the deep end. 

I want to challenge myself to write more, create more, and be more visibly active in the
creative world.

Any tips, floatation devices, and helping words are always more than welcome.