How to kill an artist

There is a broken bridge in the creative heavens

Where creators steal other worlds

Make them their own and change things

Make them straight when they ought to be curled

It’s a tragedy to see it

When a creator can’t create

For they need to take another’s work

To put food on their plates

How proud do they feel when they do it?

Does it feed their soul?

I live in doubt of the truth of that

If I may be so bold?

How hungry is the creator who takes another’s art?

How starved and deranged are they? 

If they could eat another’s heart!

For I have seen it happen

The scope of vicious duels

Of two creators in battle

For one who won’t use their tools

And I have seen the tragedies it causes in their lives

As depression rips them soundly, as though they’re stabbed with knives

They can’t live with what they do and they know it’s wrong and bad

But they can’t help it really and that’s what makes it sad

To kill another artist for the want of fame and gold

It pounds reality into me

And makes my blood run cold

The irony in procrastination

I learned something today which has helped me feel a little less frustrated about myself and accepting the fact that I am not lazy when I have procrastinated in my work, because of something a motivational speaker on Instagram had said.

“When a person goes into procrastination it is the brains coping mechanism, a response to coping with too much emotional trauma and overload”.  I may not have quoted them correctly, but it made me understand why I have procrastinated so long in my work.

Since September 2022 I’ve hardly written a thing towards any novel, because I have undergone a lot of emotional turmoil in my life.  A grief, followed by a diagnosis in my son, followed by erratic behaviours and arguments and a break in a long term relationship – coupled with the emotions I was already trying to tackle of loneliness, recovering from long-term sickness, trying to start foundations for a new routine, career, every aspect of my life I was trying to concentrate on all at once and I got overloaded and emotionally burned out.

This is why I have procrastinated so long, because I was trying to fix too many problems in my life at once, that I ended up exhausting myself on an emotional level and found I lacked the energy to think creatively, because I’m tired.

I’ve tired myself out by overthinking other problems that I did not have the energy to throw myself into the problem solving of make believe problems.

I understand this now and it has taken a huge weight off my shoulders, the weight was the anger that I had become lazy, when in fact I was the opposite.  I was working myself like a slave to do everything and being hard on myself when I failed my personal creative and career goals and dreams. 

I have also sat back and reflected that some of the things I was angry about because I felt I was lazy about them, I had actually accomplished great things but didn’t notice because I was bogged down in over perfecting them or just simply not noticing the progress I had made.

For example, March 2022 I could barely get out of bed and walk downstairs and up just once without having an asthma attack and shaky legs. 

From Easter 2022 I started to do small exercises, forcing myself to do the little things, until they built up.  Well they did build up over a time and I didn’t notice the physical achievements I was able to do.  Now I can walk up and down the stairs five times before feeling shaky.  I can do 70 reps of side reaches before I feel I need a break and for the past week I have been able to start preparing my own meals and even cooked a meal for the whole family the other day!

Things I haven’t been able to do in almost eight years!

But did I praise myself for doing all that?  No!  Because I didn’t notice until I sat back and reflected on the past year.

No more than had I noticed last week that I’ve lost 14 inches around my waist in 2yrs!  14 inches!

I’ve been on a high protein diet and I have cut out a lot of the unhealthy snacks and caffeine I used to drown myself in, not all of them, but most – to the extent my diet is almost unrecognisable from last year! 

Certain aspects of my health have improved immensely, though I still have two major problems which will never go away completely because it’s part of the auto-immunity problem I have. 

I’m reading emails daily, whereas this time last year I used to go three weeks without checking them! 

I’m spending a lot less time on social media too, I spent my whole day on social media last year! 

I’m starting to read more books.

I’ve finished an art class online.

I am halfway through two more free courses, one ran by Mel Robbins. 

I’m posting on my blog more often than not, whereas early last year I could only really post about once a week. 

I’m cutting my nails instead of biting them. 

I am replying to friends and family as soon as they message me instead of taking weeks to get back to them! 

I’ve accomplished more milestones in the past year than I have my whole life and I didn’t notice them!

I was beating myself up for being lazy and yet I was doing so much – the irony!

I also noticed another thing – I felt I didn’t have the energy to write towards my novels and I was journaling my life pretty hard in private for the past two months and guess what?  I noticed all my journal entries about my life amounted to 350k words, 350k in just two months!

I was writing approximately 2k in private journals and 4k on another one which I sometimes share with selected people a day, I say was, I still am.  This is not including the word counts for my blog posts and poetry by the way, I never counted those up! 

I told a friend online about this and I said why can’t I write like that towards my novels?  She asked the same question back at me too!

Yes, why can’t you?  Why can’t you implement changes in your style of writing so that you can do that just to get the first drafts down quickly?  Maybe you are overthinking your first drafts way too much?  You are trying to perfect first drafts immediately because you feel it’s urgent to write your novel, yet you are not writing your novel because of it. 

Irony again!

Once again I may not have quoted her 100% but that was the gist of the conversation.

Using the same method I do for journal writing to write down first drafts would mean that I would get the first drafts of four or six novels down per month that would be amazing if it is as affective as my journal writing is!

However a novel is more than just a first draft, so that was just over optimistic thinking!  But you get me, right? 

I haven’t started implementing this yet, I am talking about it today, because it is today I am trying to start with that, today is the day I am going to change my first draft method.

Wish me luck!

Thanks for reading!

My creative process

Since 2017 the idea of me getting out of bed and being eager to write anything towards a novel first thing has been a laughable notion; I used to be like that every day, but not since then.

Before September 2022 I would write approximately 1500 to 3k words a time, approximately 3 times a week sometimes more, but since September that too has been a laughable notion.

Yet there it is, several times this week I have done some creative work almost daily, though mostly drawing, but today was different.

I woke up with the enthusiasm to write and I wrote for nearly two hours and although it was only just under 2k words in that time, painfully slow in comparison to past efforts – it made me feel accomplished in some way and that perhaps I am getting my mojo back again?

Though the story I wrote towards was a project known here as Steampunk 2, I haven’t thought about this story for a long time, in fact it was last mentioned in a post here dated 3^rd July 2022 and that was probably the last time I did any thinking about it!

I have no idea why I woke up and immediately thought about that project, usually ideas stew in my mind for days before I get around writing things down, but not today – this was an instant!

I am still unsure why, but it doesn’t matter – the thing is, I did it!  I wrote like how I used to years ago, woke up with energy and enthusiasm to do so and I did it!

I think the idea of forcing myself to concentrate on a particular project just because, could be the reason why I may not want to write it.  I have pressurised myself and before I moved out of my parents’ house, I never did that.  I never pressured myself into saying oh well; I have written five chapters to project such and such I must do so again tomorrow!  I never did that, I skipped from one thing to another quite merrily and was very productive back then!

I think I’ve been too influenced by the scientific and orderly mind of Paul in this regard, because he has been the one to convince me to only concentrate on one maybe three projects a time, not all seventy odd!

So I kind of developed an element of guilt behind it wanting to write outside my planned five main projects.

I decided three wasn’t enough for me, I needed five.  That didn’t make me anymore productive either.

So, now I am going back to the idea that any work on any day is good work as it is towards something – no work in one day because  I don’t want to focus on one of five ideas is unacceptable to me.

You know what?  Last week I wanted to start writing towards a horror story that’s been in my head for two years and I didn’t knuckle down to do it, because it wasn’t my main five projects.  I had this guilt complex of writing towards that story, because I should be working on ABCD or E – you get the idea?

So I spent just 45 minutes half-heartedly writing towards project AD and the quality in my work was terrible!  In fact I feel like deleting last week’s work!

But if I had of written towards that horror I know I would have got 2 or even 3k done that day, because there were a few things I wanted to write about in that story and I was in the mood for it. 

Guilt stopped me.

I am being disloyal to my main five projects I felt!

Pah!

I am not going to do this anymore!

I believe the universe was talking to me directly tonight because I was reading a book called “Tate – brief lessons in creativity” and they reckon that every creative has their own process and when they deviate from it, they become naff or blocked.  It’s not 100% quoted accurately, but the gist is there!

Today I decided to do whatever I feel like from now onwards and today has been the most productive writing day I’ve had since 2017 in my opinion!

I noticed my poetry is becoming difficult for me, because I am trying to push myself to create at least one poem a day to keep the blog alive.  But that’s not working anymore for me!

I am putting myself into a poetry block mind-set and my creative brain is rebelling by thinking about other things – like art where I don’t restrict myself and I have even caught myself dancing and moving my body more and doing wacky things (which is normal for me anyway) only I think about random lyrical lines I am making up as I go along but it’s all freestyle and unrecorded.  Then I realised, it’s a kind of performance art this! 

Once again I felt the universe was talking to me, because it was at this time I saw an advertisement for a performance art show being performed at The Belgrade theatre called “Drive your plow over the bones of the dead”; where it is apparently dance, poetry, acting and all sorts of things in one show.  I don’t know much about it, but it kind of spoke to me and I would like to see the show some day – though I probably won’t get the opportunity to! 

My brain doesn’t like limitations, so it’s removing me from what it sees as harmful creative pursuits and setting me free in others I don’t overthink too much!

When I start overthinking and when I start making rules, I block those pursuits too… I think I am learning a lot about myself lately!

There are many things I would like to write for my blog but I worry about how chaotic it may appear to my readers.

Abstract thoughts, descriptions, no real story, no real poetry either;  just words thrown together almost lyrically with descriptions of random acts and I sit back and wonder – what am I doing?  What is this called?  Overthinking again… then I block myself and I delete what I have done because I become embarrassed.

It’s odd, nobody will get it, I think to myself.

This is the true reason behind my procrastination – the reality is, I am doing things but I am destroying them no soon as I have done them, because I think the world will find it strange or unfathomable.

Like I have lost my mind and lost in thought and dribbling on with different words, to the extent I appear to be talking gobbledygook and as though I’ve lost the plot entirely… men in white coats will be coming for you soon – echoes Paul, who also doesn’t really grasp what I do at times!  But then again, he doesn’t grasp creative people as a whole, does he?  Being a scientist and all that!

Then I think – what the heck… should I take a risk and publish it?

I never really know for sure… but I think I will risk it soon!

Thanks for reading!

Get your finger out my pie!

Get your finger out my pie

Lest the poison make you die

Take not what was made for me

My dessert for my efforts, see

You can’t be me, no matter how you try

To attempt will make you die

Your spirit won’t like to be

Something it’s not meant to, see!

This is for me, this is mine

This is not for you to dine

I can eat this slice of pie

The poison within won’t make me die

Because I’m made of stronger stuff than you

I am creative through and through

I do not steal like the likes of you

So get your finger out my pie

Lest you want your spirit to die

For you can’t be like me you see

A thief is an ugly beasty

Written 5:33pm 15th March 2023

Synchronised post

I yearn to do a lot of art and what is strange is, just as I wrote those first eight words, I paused because the TV said “You have what it takes to be a great creator” weird coincidence, but I digress.

I want to make art doesn’t seem right, it is more than that – it’s becoming a need.  I want to write my stories too, but making art is a deeper pull for me right now.

I’ve kind of found my style, I believe.

In the past few days I have been practising art and I am feeling happier for it.

When I was a child I was obsessed with what my teacher called “cutting and pasting” but I realised recently, it was actually collaging.

This is very strange, the TV just spoke about “finding your inner child” just as I spoke about a childhood memory, you know – the synchronicities happening in my life lately is driving me bonkers, I am bombarded by so many of them lately!

Paul has noticed it too, noticed the TV or the radio appearing to be on the same wavelength as my conversations with him, particularly when those conversations are about seeking a new relationship or doing anything with regards to creative pursuits.

Anyway, I digressed again.

I have decided to throw myself into junk journaling, abstract conceptualism and collaging, mixed media art that sort of thing.

I started to follow several people on Instagram for art, the people I follow on YouTube mostly and somebody there sent me a private message and noted that I have this blog and wondered why I only post up facial pictures of myself and not my art.  I didn’t really think about that before they mentioned it, because most of the time I post my art on DeviantArt – but I am considering adding them on Instagram.

Problem is that I don’t have a very good head for technology and a lot of the photos I put on my Instagram get cropped by Instagram in annoying ways and I don’t understand it – so most of the pictures I want to put up get deleted because Instagram did a boo boo.

If you get me?

I will try again in the future, so there’s a heads up for you…

Thanks for reading!

Creative locket

Come along now, come and rush at me!

I’ve a lot of things to steal

Great ideas a plenty, to pay for your gold and meals

I strive to make a difference

To be happy and be free

So come on everybody, try to steal it away from me!

I know you want to

I know you dare

I know that you don’t really care!

So come and get them

All these things

The things I’ve made

To be doused in bling

Stolen concepts to fill your pocket

Come and take my creative locket

And sell your soul to the devil for more

Steal from me in all galore!

The Devil laughs at what you do to me

Sharpening his trident in evil glee

Knowing that you are cursed by he

For stealing these gifts that came to me!

So shine your little heart out there

With things you’ve stolen but beware

That life isn’t always as glorious as this

Soon your wine will taste like piss

And your meal filled with worms and sod

Because you are a thief and will suffer the rod!

Because these gifts came to me from God!

Written 5:14pm 15th March 2023

Creative journal stored

I am creating a writer’s journal that is private and sending it to my cloud.  It is all about my thought processes throughout all my creative ventures and things that occur because of it.

I do want to be a writer and get published and I know that doesn’t seem like a reality right now in my life, due to the fact that since September I have probably written towards my novels no more than perhaps six times due to extreme depression.

But the dream is still there, to be a writer that is published.

I am trying to focus my thoughts and ignore the crap going on in my life so I can get on with it, because not writing my stories is like someone putting a chisel to my temples… its torture basically.

I thought, all the best creatives in the world keep a diary don’t they?  Well, why don’t I?  But this one with the intention of keeping it for future historians is that conceited of me?  Is that really a bad thing?

I like to think that it’s appreciated rather than judged as a form of egotism.

There are things in the diary that won’t be published until I am dead, because it will reveal problems I have undergone to maintain my individuality and it will talk about people who have literally stolen ideas from me because I talked too much in my earlier years as a writer because of the advice of “how to write” books.

It won’t just focus on my writing though, it will focus on my whole being as a creative; stories, poems, art, music, everything that inspired creation in me and had a part in the works I’ve done.  I will talk about all my projects, even those that might never get published.  Those that might never get published will always be stored away somewhere, so that in the future, perhaps someone will publish them because they want them, because they want more of me.

Again, not to be conceited, but I have to think about how much people want these things and they will and they do this thing with other posthumous authors and creatives, so why should I be any different?  It’s just forward thinking that’s all.  We often get pent up with all the process of just being ourselves we forget the larger picture, we presume we are not good enough to get to that stage where we become historical, but who are we to judge in the end?

Nobody thinks highly of themselves enough to assist historians do they?  Some do, but not many and it is a frustrating thing for historians.  I have a love for history and I have a love for certain authors of which I wanted to know more on a deeper level but they felt that they were being conceited if they spoke about themselves a lot – humble creatures really.  I am too, but I understand people and the things they yearn as I am a person too.

So that is what I am doing.  I am, from today, creating a creative diary about my writing, its processes, where I got inspiration from, my rivals, my thieves, everything about my creations is going to be documented.  If nothing else it will make me write more than I do, because it could be used as a warm up to writing instead of playing online games or ranting in my 750words.com

I will enjoy it.

Thanks for reading…

Creative individuals empathise

The worst thing I have ever done was listen to people who told me I should share my ideas or snippets online regarding my story work.

There are just so many thieves and if you are not as fast as them they just steal from you constantly and that is very disheartening.  I suffer from depression as it is without people literally trying to tear pieces out of my soul as well!

Because to me my creative self is my soul, when you steal from me you are tearing my soul apart like some vicious starved demon!

If you don’t empathise with what I am saying here, then you are not a true creator, you are just a creative thief.  If you empathise with what I am saying, then you are a true creator and know exactly what it means to create new content and how much it means to you to be a creative INDIVIDUAL.

I can’t understand people who actively steal from others, they can’t feel fulfilled in themselves – they might have success, they might have money, but they don’t have a soul, do they?

They’ve sold their soul and their individuality if they can do such a thing.

I pity them.

Honestly I do, I pity that they are so ashamed of themselves they don’t want to share their true selves with the world, like I do and like true creatives do.

It’s really sad actually.

This is why, from this point onwards, I will mention my projects by their code names – but I am no longer dropping hints about them at all, other than their genre.  I won’t even talk about the amalgam of influence I got for the story either, as that gives away too much! 

It’s sad to have to do this too, but I can’t have people taking something precious like this away from me all the time…

Thanks for reading!

Creative expression plans

I am starting to think about doing some new approaches to my creativity soon, at the moment it will be difficult to do the changes that I want to do, because of the environment I am living in – but I am hoping soon, in the near future things will be different and I will have more freedom to express myself in an environment that I can thrive in.

A place where I am able to write when I need to and my personal time and space is respected, a place where I can do my art without fighting mess and a place where I practise my music without having arguments about overriding a television or making disturbing background noises because someone wants to listen to their laptop gaming noise instead of music.

Most of all, I am looking forward to an environment that is organised and clean most of the time and where nobody slobs about without a care for weeks on end, until mess gets so out of hand everyone moans and chips in finally for half a day, only for three days later it would seem nothing has changed at all.

It would be good to get back into the habit of watching movies again, because doing that here has always been impossible.  Nobody wants a movie on, unless it’s the same old, same old.

As a former movie buff, this has been a hard pill to swallow.

I haven’t kept up to date with the movie industry since I moved here in the early summer of 2009.

I am very behind.

Right after I have written this post, I am going to write something for myself and myself only. 

I am going to write a list of plans for my creative future and I am going to store this on my computer to read at a later date, a date when I am no longer living here in this environment.

I am doing this because I have been prompted to think about it by a book called “Art for happiness” by Val Andrews – they’ve set a task in which I am to think about any new ways I would like to express myself that I haven’t done already and there is quite a few actually and some I want to combine to create what I believe could be a new creative art form.

I have always had an interest in stage plays and the theatre and it is something along those lines.

I’ve composed music in the past, written lyrics and poems, done some amateur dramatics at college, did some private designs for fashion and dreamt up stories, painted pictures and even danced.  I have been known to decoupage and embroider, knit and crochet.  I have also been classically trained in opera as a child and was the main lyricist and singer of a rap/rock band in college, even though I was always more of a jazz, rock and soul singer in my heart.

Jazz and soul are the preferred genres my family and friends like me to sing.

As a child and into my teens I had always had an interest in burlesque but it was aggressively shunned by my mother, yet my paternal grandmother encouraged it as it was something her own mother did in between being a professional ballet and cancan dancer – my grandmother herself was a majorette and was known to do small amateur dramatic theatre work as a volunteer at weekends, usually to entertain for free the elderly visiting from residential homes and she did this along with two of my aunts and sometimes my dad.

My dad stopped going because mum didn’t like him doing it and she didn’t like my aunts encouraging me to think about joining them in their acts too!

They loved my singing, they said that my voice often moved them to tears and several old people in the audience too as I sang no less than twice for them all.

When it appeared I had some kind of talent, mum soon put a stop to my singing lessons too!

Some of the old people who lived in my street knew my mum did this and their hearts went out to me, because they knew I was home-schooled, they knew the house was noisy and didn’t sound very happy and they knew I lived in the garden.  They were sad when they used to hear me sing on my swing in the garden, people could hear me several houses away. 

Some of them tried to guilt trip my mum by telling them she should let me sing again and go back to her music classes, but she wouldn’t have it.

I lost my confidence when I was around ten years old to sing in the garden, when some new children moved into the house at the back of us and started to bully me for it, because it was opera and they felt I wasn’t cool not to mention I was fat and sad and lonely, as they called me.

Those children became the bane of my life from then onwards, as from 3pm until 8pm most days I would be self-conscious about being seen in the garden by them as they’d deliberately throw balls to bounce off my head and mock me by trying to knock me off my swing.  So I tried to keep nearer to the house, this meant that I couldn’t play with my rabbit called Toffee at the time or sit near the pond, because they’d make entertainment of me.

When I was around thirteen mum wanted more control of the garden and to make it family space as the summers were getting hotter and hotter and so because she was bothered by the children too, she put up a 6ft fence all around us.

This meant I felt free to exercise in the garden again without being mocked at any time I liked again.  I loved netball practise and swing ball, I played squash up against the house too and wasn’t self-conscious in practising my judo either.

I still don’t know when I will move out; I know I can’t really finance that yet.  But I am looking forwards to leaving – I’ve always believed this house is the thing that made me ill.

I never felt easy living here, it was like the house is alive and it didn’t welcome me – ever been in a house where you have an innate feeling you’re unwanted?

Paul told me his house is haunted and that since I moved in, within weeks the spirit seemed to have gone.  I promised him I had done nothing to scare it off, but Paul has always felt it was weird how the ghost seemed to have just vanished when I moved in.

Perhaps I made it insecure?

Who knows?

Thanks for reading…

Rigid mind

Rigid, those are my thoughts tonight; Rigid and taut through depression and desperation

No matter how hard I try to sit myself down tonight and ignore what’s going on in my heart and mind on a base emotional level, I still can’t help but be dragged down by a numbed mind.

I have written four poems tonight, all destined for the deletion pile, though I am trying to be more merciful with my craft and lock them away in a file on my laptop called “wasted”, as it was wasted time.

Wasted one, wasted two, wasted three, and wasted four, until I felt that tonight I am not in my poetic mojo at all and gave up.

I am certainly in a creative mind-set, but not really focused for Project AD, that’s a children’s comedy horror and I feel more like writing something along the lines of Mr Ted or The Gargoyles Heart.

Oftentimes when I have days or nights like these, I tend not to write anything, not even towards my blog – but I have decided to change.

I have decided to share these times with you all, because these are the times when I can get really down to the heart of the matter – become creative, it’s a strange place to be.

Depressed and apathetic in everything but the written word, depending however what that written word is going to be at the time and whether or not it matches what’s going on inside of you.

A few years ago I used to write snippets, where they were more or less like practise pieces and I would just write the first thing that came into my mind and I would post it.  I got out of the habit of that and it really should be revived again.

This is the start of that.

Thanks for reading…