Can You Defeat Time?

Time is never on my side, I feel.

The clock is ticking… >.>

I wish I had more time to do more things. I like to invest time into whatever I do. I can spend hours editing a scene or a video. It’s not that I suck at time management, it is simply how it is. I cannot take shortcuts because then it would lessen the quality of my work. So how to deal with this?

How do I not go crazy over the fact that the clock is continuously ticking and I’m always feeling like I’m playing catch-up?

It takes getting used to. I have stopped thinking I can outsmart time or even beat it. I can be more efficient with it but I cannot pretend to defeat it. So now I run with it and too bad if it seems like I’m lagging behind. Truth is as long as I know how I do spend that time, then it’s all good. I have created a balance in my creative work so that I am equally invested in all of my endeavours as such.

I will do everything… at once!

I am always writing something, even bits and pieces of scenes or ideas, I am always writing. Even when I play games, I use that to produce videos for my YouTube channel. No time is wasted when it comes to my creativity. I also remember to switch off and zone out with a book (as in reading for pleasure and nothing else) or in front of the TV.

Only a year ago, I was always in a constant state of panic because I kept thinking I was running out of time to do what I wanted.

How was I going to achieve all of my goals and ambitions in the time that I have? It was torture. I was torturing myself every day. I felt guilty whenever I did something that had no connection to my dreams.

Now I know that time does not care and does not have a personal vendetta against me.

The clock keeps on ticking but it is up to me to decide how I interpret the seconds going by. I am not panicked anymore. I am motivated. Motivated to use the time that I have to feel super awesome about what I do. I am grateful for the fact that I do have time to do the things I want to do. Will I achieve everything that I want? Will I realise all of my ambitions?

It’s not up to time. It’s up to me.

 

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The Way I Write

When I made the conscious decision to fully dive into writing, I did what I suppose many writers have done before me and what many writers will do in the future: I looked up various ways to write. I read about best-selling authors’ methods of writing and planning. I read my favourite author’s (Stephen King, if you didn’t know) opinion on writing methodology and I tried to find which one suited me best.

There are various ways to write. Let’s analyse them all!

Not once did I even think then that maybe, just maybe, there was another way. MY way. A way that only I can do and only I can achieve. Again, throughout my life I feel like common sense was often acknowledged but never applied. In other words:

I was a dum-dum about many many MANY things. Including the writing process.

So is this blog going to be about my writing process? Well, I’m going to share the way I write (after all, I assume most writers and readers enjoy hearing about this stuff, I know I do) but mostly this is about how I beat myself up in the most creative ways possible.

A visual representation of beating myself up

I knew I was going to be an artist because I felt it when I was a kid and I read my very first comic. I used to read the adventures of Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge and Mickey Mouse. They were fucking awesome. I would anxiously wait for Saturday as it was the day my parents took us to the bookshop and buy us comic books or books, whichever we wanted.

One of my favourite comic book magazines ❤

I was more than a reader even then as I would grab blank pieces of paper and draw my own stories of these characters. Spoiler: I suck at drawing. I hated myself for not being good enough to draw. Yep, I started beating myself up as early as back then. Dum-Dum.

I eventually stopped drawing (I doodled on my school notebooks and stuff, but never tried to draw comics again) but I did not stop writing. I would write different things: made-up stories, fanfiction and TV Show scripts. I was creative in many aspects of my life. I would play with Lego and action figures but follow a storyline (no matter how basic). I remember an awesome moment when I had Shredder face off with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Shredder was about to be defeated but PLOT TWIST: Michelangelo betrays his brothers. Gasp!

It was a shit ton of fun.

As I grew older, I got better and better at putting myself down. I would repeat to myself day in and day out that I was not good enough. I screamed internally at myself that I was deluded if I thought I had any ounce of talent. I beat myself to a bloody pulp. I almost killed my creative self and resigned to never follow what my heart truly wanted.

Is this the end?

But then that part of me didn’t die. I got back on my feet and decided that being miserable was tiring. It was fucking exhausting. I still heard myself say:

You’re not good enough, but now I also thought: So, what?

It was a start. I began to listen to my bruised heart again. Nurtured him and allowed him to share what he wanted. It hadn’t changed since I was a kid: he wanted to be an artist. A storyteller. A writer.

It took a while but now, I don’t hear myself say: You’re not good enough. At least, not as often as I used to. Once I was able to stop belittling myself all the time, once I stopped beating myself up constantly, I realised what was my methodology of writing.

I make up stories and chase these moments that make me feel like a kid playing with his action figures. That’s the way I write.

You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet

So, my computer died a couple of weeks ago and I finally got a new one sorted.

And it’s a beauty.

I often wondered why some people, especially guys, get so wrapped up in their cars and now I know. I’m the same, except with tech things like video game consoles and computers. No wonder one of my favourite super heroes is Iron Man.

Iron Man is damn cool! *_*

But anyway, I haven’t been able to properly dive into my writing groove. I had to use a shitty backup laptop that was slow as. It still did a decent enough job but I couldn’t use it to type over a long period of time.

aka my back-up laptop T.T

 

And now, here I am with KITT. Yes, I named my computer. He deserved a name. I did tell you how I now understand people and their love of cars, right? KITT is fast, powerful and runs things smooth.

A spiritual representation of my new computer ❤

Yet, I find it hard to write this. I almost want to give my keyboard a good bashing and walk away. Maybe there’s an interesting video on YouTube for me to watch or something.

Writing story ideas is not an issue, that I can do, no worries.

It is the letting go so I can write as honestly as possible that is giving me headaches. I thought I had let go before but it turns out that no, in fact, I really haven’t.

So, what’s my fucking issue? Why can’t I get it together and work my ass off towards succeeding as a writer? I want to write stories, I want to write blogs, I want to connect with readers and yet… I have remained still for almost two weeks.

How I feel sometimes >.<

Okay, truth be told, I have done stuff.

I have applied for something writer-related and I have been sorting out KITT. But still, I hadn’t written a single word of this blog. I had been putting it off for a while now. You know when I thought of writing this blog? Back when I was still honeymooning across France and Italy (side note: IT WAS THE BEST!). I kept putting it off and I didn’t know why until recently.

What the hell is wrong with me?

Let. It. Go.

I will spare you the Frozen meme. Saying it is easy (Let it go, let it gooooo… Dammit!) but applying the concept is another beast entirely. As I mentioned, I thought I had done that before. After all,

I am unashamedly myself around people and I am not afraid to share my thoughts even when it might mean people thinking less of me or thinking I’m an idiot.

But then I thought about it more.

I am like that with my friends, with my family, but with the world? No, I am not. In the previous blog posts that I have written I have only shared a piece of myself. The rest is carefully guarded. It’s almost like a belief that if I share only a little bit, I’ll be fine and totally safe. But it’s not true. I am not fine. I’m miserable. I feel like I can’t be myself as an author.

If I cannot share my thoughts and my feelings as an author, then what is the fucking point?

Here I am now. I am not going to hold back anymore. I am going to make it my main quest, the big one, the unavoidable one, to let everything go when I put words to paper (well, digital words to digital paper. You get what I mean!). Screw you, safety!

Time to let go

What should you expect from me in the coming weeks? Well, more blog posts. More YouTube-ing (I will go through a shake-up on there actually) and most importantly, more fucking writing. I have ideas, I need to explore them. I need to dig deep and rip out those feelings. Spread them all over pages and let them speak. Watch this space.

You ain’t seen nothing yet.

In the name of the Moon, I shall be true to myself

Fight For Your Dreams: Daring Or Crazy Stupid?

There were many times when I thought about doing something but then talked myself out of it. There was always a convenient excuse or a good enough reason to not even try: Why bother? It’ll never work anyway.

It’s hard to let go of that fear when you’ve spent years allowing it to have a say, no matter how small, in your everyday life.

It takes a lot of work to stand up to that naysaying voice and go, ‘You know what? Screw you!’

That’s how it has been with writing. When I was a child, I had no qualms in drawing my own comics and making up short stories to go with them. I didn’t feel the need to share those at the time because they were just for my own fun. I created stories while playing with Lego and other action figures (I owned a lot of Japanese action figures at the time – it was an awesome era!). There was no fear.

Taking a leap of faith

When I was a teenager, I created a web-series on what used to be Geocities homepages. I wrote during whole summer holidays, creating outrageous storylines for my ensemble cast. It was an absolute blast. I even fooled myself into thinking that I was surely the first person to ever think of creating a web-series. I wasn’t the first. But the other writers were very kind and supportive.

Glad to see that the writing community hasn’t turned sour since then.

I have found that fire again after being lost for a very long time. At some point I had decided that earning money had become more important than anything else, including my happiness. I was adulting, as they say. I was listening to fear. The naysaying voice had won and claimed its territory for that time. But then I found my fire again and fought back.

Fighting back

I am now happier as I am doing what I am meant to do.

Somehow, this has also opened something else in my mind. Something that had been closed, unbeknownst to me, since my teenage years. The willingness to dare. To do what I wanted to do even if it meant making a fool of myself. Some would say that choosing to be an author is just that.

Why would I willingly choose a career that will condemn me to slave away for ages with no guarantee of financial reward?

Well, because that’s what I’m meant to do.

So today I dare again. Try things that may seem foolish or pointless. It can take many forms. It can be through my writing, through my creativity or even through my everyday life. It can also be simply daring to dream.

With that in mind, I decided to leap into the world of YouTube.

YouTube – Here I am

I had been thinking about this for the past two years or so. I am one of those people who spend hours upon hours watching content creators on YouTube and Twitch. There are some real gems out there. I do have a passion for film and television and visual stuff in general. I love gaming, graphic novels, and animation.

I thought why not become a content creator as a way to put that side of my creativity to use? I’ll dare.

I’ve got to say that I had forgotten just how long it takes to make videos. It takes a very long time. You have to have the patience for it. Same with writing. But the important part of making videos is to enjoy making them. I had a lot of fun testing angles, colours, framing, audio, backdrops, and titles.

It also means it’s going to make me even busier this year and moving forward. In between writing and making videos, I won’t even have time to play any games.

Jokes. There’ll always be time for gaming!

I like this year already. Someone told me recently that there’s something different about me. Something about my aura had changed. I am radiating something. I know what that is. That’s happiness.

ハッピー

Happiness in knowing that I am going in the right direction for me.

It’ll be a difficult road with no guarantee of rewards but at the very least, I’ll feel alive.

That’s something.

If you’re curious, click on the link below to open my YouTube channel. Hope you like what you see. If you do, give it a like and subscribe. It’d be super awesome! 🙂

My YouTube Channel

 

 

Up, Up & Away

What have I been doing this year?

I haven’t written much in a while.

I want to say that life got in the way, that work kept me so busy I couldn’t even make time to stop and relax or that there were many other tiny factors that when combined meant I couldn’t unlock the creative juices in my brain. Yep, I can explain it in a thousand different ways but the thing is, I just didn’t try hard enough.

It’s fucked really when I think about it.

I should’ve come home every night after work and got straight onto the computer and typed away at my manuscript or whatever else came to my mind. I should’ve spent any free time I had on the weekends on my computer typing away. I should’ve tried harder.

But then again, I would’ve just stared at a blank page for hours on end.

I feel like shit when I realise that I didn’t have it in me this year to push through the exhaustion and the mental blocks. I should’ve been stronger, should’ve tried much harder. Hard work pays off, I do believe in that.

I have beaten myself up all year when I wasn’t writing. I trashed myself in my mind. Writers write as they breathe. Not doing so would mean the death of their soul. I am dramatic and that’s how it is in my head. I saw this year as a slow death for my soul. I was not happy. There were moments of joy, of course. I wasn’t crying in a corner all year, don’t get me wrong. But there was always this part of me that clouded my mind constantly. I was not doing what I was meant to be doing.

Writing.

I had all these big ideas on New Year’s Eve last year. I was going to finally write blog posts, I was going to be way more active on social media, I was going to really push myself forward. I failed utterly and miserably. It’s shit. I feel like shit.

I did win a mentorship though after entering a short story in a competition which is this year’s saving grace for me. I took it as a sign of the universe telling me, ‘Stop fucking around and do what you’re meant to be doing!’

It’s not easy to follow the path your heart tells you to take. Funnily enough, I’ve often just listened to that voice and that’s how I ended up here in Australia. This was the place my heart was telling me to go. And yet, this year, I gagged my heart, knocked it unconscious and listened to common sense instead. I needed a job.

I needed to work full-time.
I needed to make sure money was never going to be an issue.

Duh, of course you need to work and to earn money. How else are you going to survive? It made sense. But what I didn’t do was to make sure that I also allowed for my soul to sing. And the way my soul does that is by creating stories. I did not do that. Instead, I became someone else. Someone that isn’t me at all. Someone who let his job consume his being and that was it. I was reduced to my job title and that chipped away at my being, bit by bit.

By the time Christmas came around this year, I wasn’t sure what I was meant to celebrate. I feel like I’ve accomplished absolutely nothing. I feel like all I’ve done is put some coins in a tin and that’s about it.

But then the universe once again came to my rescue. I’ve got to say that I feel pretty lucky that the universe keep slapping some sense into me.

I was talking with someone and the conversation turned into how I saw myself in the future. As in, not the distant future, but more immediate. What do I see myself doing next year? 5 years from now? They asked me, point blank:

Where does your future lie?

And my heart was loud and clear: Writing.

I answered with honesty, as I always like to do.

I felt great when I said it, I felt true to myself.

So here we are, I am still recovering from a shit year but that’s it: I am recovering.

Being a writer is who I am.

I am feeling my heart lighten as the New Year approaches and I feel my mind beginning to break down the blocks that have been there all year.

It’s not an easy road ahead but I don’t care. This is what I am meant to be doing. I am a storyteller and I am done silencing my heart.

2019 will be different.

I’ll work hard.

I’ll fall.

But more importantly: I’ll keep going.

Fuck common sense.

My heart and soul are now taking flight.