CREATIVELY CHALLENGED

Greetings, my friends.

I like to call myself a creative person. I think up a lot of stories, and rather frequently tell them to myself just so somebody gets to hear them. I like art. I like making things up out of thin air. I like to create. And I like to create for other people.

Unfortunately, I'm not very good at this kind of creating.

Let's say I imagine a picture. A girl with a long cloak and the hood up standing in a dark forest, holding up a lantern with one hand. In my head, the picture is wonderful, and I know exactly how it must be done to transfer this image onto a blank piece of paper. I sharpen a soft pencil, get paper from the printer and set to work. Two hours later, I will, for sure, rip the sheet into pieces and briefly consider breaking the pencil in half.

Let's say I think of a beautiful storyline that would perfectly fit into the novel I'm currently working on. I have all the characters I need, I have the setting and the dialogue, all I need to do is put that story into words. And I can't.

I am never satisfied with anything I do. And this goes beyond the natural artist's scepticism that tells every creator that his work could be just a little better. I am horribly frustrated whenever I try to create something worthwhile which has lead me to generally avoid having to create things.

A friend of mine keeps an appointment calendar that she hands her friends every week with a new theme to draw. If I can, I only write words in fancy colours because even my sheep (which are curly lines forming a circle with four little lines for legs and a crude head) look horribly out of place in that fancy calendar.

Although I actually love drawing and crafty things like sewing and knitting, my inability to execute any of these in a fashion that would allow me to be proud of the results mostly keeps me from doing any of them. I must have dozens of little, five inch pieces of knitting that don't follow any kind of pattern or serve any kind of purpose.

Maybe this frustration is partly due to the fact that as a creating mind, I have found myself creating minds as friends. Which is not to say that I blame my friends for my own failures.

But anybody who has ever had to sit next to a teenage Van Gogh in art class knows that feeling of incapability. And now imagine feeling that almost all the time.

My friends are painters, photographers, tailors, singers, actors, comedians, musicians, make-up artists, dancers, fashion-icons and writers. Add the fact that they are all incredibly beautiful and you get where my problem comes from.

I try not to let that get to me too much. But of course, the harder you push something away, the more force it has rushing back in. And now I finally got the soluttion Maybe I can change things, though.

I decided to create. Just create. No matter what. I'll doodle on notes. I'll draw in calendars. I'll write up stories. I'll simply create. No second thoughts. No regrets.

I hope I'll be happier with this. I hope somebody joins me.

AUTUMN

Everybody has a favourite season.

As in “time of the year”.

Mine is autumn. Some people say that that is when everything ends, you know, wither and die and go to hell or whatever. That’s not true. In autumn, everything prepares for a long, recreational sleep only to awake fresh and better than ever before in spring. 

The seasons are like a day. You sleep in winter, including all the good dreams (Christmas and, in my case, my birthday) and nightmares (winter depression, report cards). You wake up in spring and start the year-day full of energy. Summer is when you’re wide awake and doing all the awesome stuff while the sun is shining and it’s warm enough for tanktops and shorts. Autumn is preparing for bed. 

Preparing for bed means a good film or series, comfy pants and a sweater. Nice dinner. Hot chocolate and a biscuit. Or three. Punch and tea. A fire in the fireplace. The warmest, cosiest duvet imaginable. Autumn is enjoying the last sunshine and watching the leaves turn red. It’s a picnic in the park with thermos bottles and coats. It’s huddling together. It’s red and gold and orange and yellow. It’s that part of a book when everything’s changed but before the part that you love but hate because then everything changes again and gets horrible.

I like preparing for bed. It builds up the expectation for the next day full of adventures and awesomeness.

And yeah, I totally googled for pictures. Sorry.

NOT SLEEPING

You’ve already done fifty sit-ups because your neighbour is throwing a party and you can’t sleep.  The love songs you’re listening to sound horrible with the drumming bass from next door, it’s too warm in bed and you have to be up tomorrow at seven a.m.. Then there’s that idea stuck in your head but the laptop is downstairs and you’re too lazy to get it, plus it’s the middle of the freaking night.

Your hair is kind of annoying you because it kind of sticks to your throat but you can’t sleep with a ponytail. Your blanket is already heated up and your pillow can’t seem to be comfortable.

Of course, you don’t want to wake up your friends by texting. You don’t dare to start to read because then you won’t stop for two hours.

Now the smell of the pen ink makes you nostalgic.

You thought the party was over because it was quiet for at least two minutes but alas, you were wrong and here it goes again. You start thinking about your life, making resolutions you know you won’t keep. You start making plans that will never work out. You start dreaming.

But you still can’t sleep.

You hate everybody who is  asleep right now. It annoys the crap out of you. You almost wrote a page of ranting. Thinking about blogging it.

Uncomfortable position that hurts bad wrist even more than usual.

Melancholy takes over. You almost cry although you don’t really have a reason.

Your handwriting turns from quite neat to horribly messy. Your fingers hurt from clutching that pen. They still smell like chocolate from the chocolate biscuits you made earlier.

You turn of the light, turn over your blanket and make a ponytail.

Good luck.

THINGS THAT ARE SCARY: WHAT COMES AFTER SCHOOL

Hello and welcome to the first edition of a new segment: Scary Things. This time: University.

So, I know it’s a bit early for me to start thinking about that kind of stuff, being only 16 and everything – at least that’s what my parents say. But that doesn’t stop me from being super-worried.

The thing is, I don’t know what I want to do after I finish school in two years. Right now, I just don’t have a clue. I really want to do something that matches my personality and my passions. Which would mean a Bacherlors Degree in Creative Writing.

Yes, that actually exists. I could study it at Birkbeck in London, which is the city of my dreams at all times. The course seems really great and I would really learn a lot. It would help me be better at what I love the most (after eating chocolate): writing.

It’s a four year course, which for me, being sixteen and all, is a really long time. I mean, that’s like a quarter of my life! But then again, when I finish, I’ll only be twenty-two. That’s still so young, I could still go and do everything with my life that I want.

I know that a degree in Creative Writing isn’t a very good career option, but the longer I think about it, the less I actually care. I mean, if I don’t want to trust only luck, it’s the best chance I have to make writing my career.

I’ll just put this out there on the Interwebs. That way I can just recheck my arguments again sometime.

Now, University is scary because it’s such a big step. Although it’s some kind of school, it’s different. For many students, University means moving out of their parents’ place and live on their own. It means student debts and hard work and just so much new stuff thrown in your face.

And as much as I look forward to moving on and have an independent life, really growing up, as of now I can’t imagine being able to handle my life on my own. And that’s what scares me