All Things Writing

I am a writer. My writing is on all these pages, but here I hope to get creative. I’ll write about writing, creatively and otherwise. Though some actual creative writing is set to take place as well. Here’s hoping.

Pushing forward

by 2clouds

When I hit a wall (a mental one) I sometimes feel like banging my head against it, sliding down to the floor, and just sitting there for a while. Yes, that is the image I have in my mind.

I’m not about to give up, mind you. I am taking a break, gathering my strength, and taking the time to examine what is keeping me from continuing or why that wall is there, to begin with.

Lately, this wall has kept me from posting here. But as I mentioned yesterday, for far longer it has kept me from pursuing my creative writing.

I think one of the problems is a lack of focus. I have my job, my freelance work, my life outside of work, a desire to finally write that story (whichever it will eventually turn out to be), and to also work on this blog.

I can’t do it all at once without making sacrifices. The easiest sacrifice in my case has been to put aside my creative pursuits. In fairness, I do consider this blog a part of my creative pursuits and it is also intended to become a platform for my more creative writing instead of just musings on whatever or a place where I will eventually also write more about traveling.

In a way, this blog is currently my creative outlet whilst I am hoping to eventually get the juices flowing on novel writing.

But when I am mentally exhausted, I also end up not writing here either. And that’s when I start feeling guilty, which is idiotic. I do need breaks. We all do. I can’t feel guilty for putting something on hold whilst I gather my strength to continue pushing forward.

The wall I hit didn’t just appear out of nowhere. A part of me built it brick by brick, eventually stopping me in my tracks.

I put up the wall in an effort to stop myself. We all have our coping mechanisms. I rather not have a wall there to begin with. So, why is it there?

Because my life has become unbalanced. My job can be quite demanding and eat up much more time than the part-time hours my contract includes. Whilst I get overtime, I also become exhausted because this isn’t exactly what I want.

I have my assignments from clients to complete as well. Eventually, I am too tired to work on anything else I care about, don’t make time for my friends either, and end up on my sofa wanting the world to go away.

Since Easter, work has eased up somewhat and I have enjoyed more time with my friends and taking a bit of a mental health break from everything. Balance feels restored once more, which is also why I am back here posting.

And not just that, but also thinking of how I can improve this blog to become what I want it to be. I’m planning on re-working the current design.

As I mentioned yesterday, I have been watching content on YouTube from the same group of creators and eventually ended up wondering why I am so attracted to what they are doing. It’s not just about the insights they are sharing but also about their style. All of them are minimalists in some way and/or passionate about their topics.

I called this blog ‘Story of my life for a reason, and I need it to reflect that in a way that it currently isn’t. And that means I have to put in the work.

I appreciate every one of you who continues to check in here with me. I will be honest, I do want this to be a passion project where I don’t just ramble about myself. I want to share things that are of value. I want this place to grow.

Let’s see where the journey goes as I keep pushing ahead.

Do I suffer from writer’s block?

by 2clouds

I am legitimately asking myself this question. I’ve not done any creative writing since the outbreak of the pandemic. Not the kind I want to do anyway.

No ideas. No drive.

There seems to be a distinct lack of will or desire to sit down and wrack my brain for words that might conceivably end up becoming a story. Indeed, whilst I have had plenty of ideas in the past, nothing has excited me for a long time.

The pandemic, the lockdowns, isolation, the money worries – they all played their part, of course. None of it helped to motivate me to write creatively.

Yet, I still write. I try to post here (though we have seen that lately, I have not been as consistent as I wanted to be), and I also journal (also not exactly frequently).

Plus, there is my freelance writing, which helps pay the bills.

Maybe I am suffering from a creative block?

I know it isn’t so much the work of sitting down and putting words on paper. The problem is a lack of ideas. Or more specifically that nothing I come up with truly excites me.

I always jot down ideas. And never pursue them.

It’s not a lack of wanting to write, though. When I read Neil Gaiman, I want to write. Same for other writers I truly enjoy. They make me want to write. But what do I write when nothing comes to mind?

Putting one word after another isn’t going to cut it if they don’t make a coherent whole.

Let me digress for a moment. Lately, I have spent hours watching YouTube videos, but it turns out that I haven’t been doing so just randomly. I have been seeking inspiration and solutions. I watch the content I enjoy. And I have realized that seeking out creators whose content I enjoy is a manner of seeking out what seems to work. I want to figure out why it works.

Why do these creators appeal to me? What is it about their content that speaks to me? If I gave you a playlist of everyone whose content I watched lately, you’d find a surprisingly common theme in style, manner, and topics.

So, today I sat and pondered what everyone whose content I’ve been enjoying lately has in common and why they appeal to me. It is quite striking when you become aware of it.

Whilst it hasn’t quite cured my creative block, I am at least here now to post this. And it has got me thinking about my blog as well.

But more on that tomorrow. I still need to do more thinking.

When it matters

by 2clouds

I doubt myself a lot. We all do, I suppose. Unless you’re of the rare breed of people who have a ton of unearned confidence.

I mostly doubt my writing. Especially when it matters; anytime I have to prove I can write.

I’m afraid I won’t have any good ideas. Or my writing will sound contrived. Too idiosyncratic. Or I’m not capturing the voice the client is looking for.

There are dozens of reasons in which my writing could be found wanting. I choke. I end up feeling paralyzed, wondering how I ever managed to put a single word down. How I will ever manage again.

My head empties of all words and ideas.

It is quite awful. Though I wouldn’t necessarily call it writer’s block. I still want to write, and I still know how to. It’s just that this doubt becomes overpowering just for a minute or two.

Then I pull myself together. I remember what is at stake and I get to work. If a client isn’t satisfied, they will either give me pointers to allow me to adapt my work accordingly, or we part ways.

At the end of the day, I can only improve. All writing I do is a learning experience. This is also true for every article I publish here. Sometimes I feel as if I am just rambling incoherently. I certainly hope that’s not the case and I do proof-read my articles before I publish them. At least, to catch any typos and make sure that there is some sort of structure or thought one can follow.

When it comes to freelance writing, I often get guidelines to follow, which I simply must stick to and do my best.

Right now, I must find new writing gigs as my current client is still not providing new assignments. I have to make ends meet next month and beyond. So, I will have to bite the bullet and submit writing examples to be judged accordingly.

I know I can work something out. I may doubt myself in some ways (as we all do), but I have never doubted my capacity to keep going. In German, we have the word ‘Urvertrauen’, which is basically a deep-seated faith that there is a way. I have always had a lot of that.

I know I can trust in my abilities. Any writer is critical of their writing. Any poet, painter, artist of any kind is their own worst critic. I know there is plenty of room to learn and improve as well. But I’ve been doing this for eight years, sometimes even full-time.

I can do this. I will do this. I must.

How’s this for a pep talk, ey?

Freelance anxiety

by 2clouds

I suppose this is what you might call the feeling you get when you are in danger of losing a client. It’s not pleasant. There is an element of existential dread because your clients are your source of income. And when you lose one, your income shrinks.

I’m a freelance writer. I have currently one main client I am working for, and it’s been a good working relationship for over six years. Sometimes there has been more work, other times less. They’ve gone through changes as well since they’ve been swallowed by bigger companies several times over the years.

But my main contact has remained the same and he always wanted me to stay on board, which I was happy to do.

Last year, in the wake of the pandemic, I had to let go of a client who had become unreachable and only paid my invoices after I had to remind him repeatedly. He always did pay but having to chase my money made me so anxious that I didn’t want to deal with him anymore. Plus, he never explained what happened.

That left me with one main client as well as another one who only sporadically requested content from me. I made it work and ended up getting enough assignments from my main client to keep going.

After the latest change on their end, I received a new contract to work as a freelance contractor and a set new hourly rate, which is what they preferred to work with. That was fine by me and for the last few months, this has been working quite nicely. I log my hours with my main contact, whom I’ve been working with for such a long time now and things seemed to go smoothly.

But now it has been three weeks since my last assignment and I’ve almost completed the work I was given to keep me going when nothing more urgent was coming in. Once I will have submitted that, I am out of work and that does not feel good.

Thus far, I have always received new assignments, even when work was slow on their end. And I am still meeting the minimum income threshold that I have set myself for my freelance work. But I have no security beyond that.

My other job earns me enough to pay all my bills. So that is covered. But since I work only part-time, it doesn’t earn me enough to help save money for the more pleasant things in life. I can make do for a while. But that’s really not where I want to be right now.

I need more work. I need other streams of income. Perhaps new clients. Or, ideally, I make money with my own blog, right here.

It takes time to build an audience, however. And even more so one that is willing to support your work. I want to offer something that is of value to someone. Ideally, to more than just someone but to many people.

Apart from these musings I have been sharing these last few days, this blog is also meant to provide actual content about minimalism, traveling, and photography. And there is the creative writing I ought to be doing.

I guess I’m going to have to stop musing and get started writing.

Draft, delete, repeat

by 2clouds

I feel like I should be writing. I have enough thoughts and ideas I want to write about or discuss, but nothing I come up with seems right.

For instance, I’ve been feeling quite happy lately – this deep-seated contentment that permeates my being most of the time. I’m not always aware of it, especially when I feel down for some reason. So, it feels precious when I do realise that it is just there and that things are good.

But how do you write about happiness without sounding contrived or preachy? I can only speak from my perspective, which may be helpful to some and appear idiotic to others. Does it even matter? This blog is called ‘The Story of my life’. I can only share my perspective.

Apart from sounding contrived, I could very well be in over my head as well. After all, so much has already been said and written about the subject, what could I possibly add?

Which takes us back to this being my story and nobody else’s. We may be nearing 8 billion people on this planet in the next year and a half, but no two people will ever live the exact same life. Each story is unique.

Still, I can’t quite decide on how to pursue one subject over another and end up deleting what I’ve written and start on something else.

I’ve done this several times already and here we are. The latest draft discarded and on a new subject that somehow combines everything I’ve attempted to write about before. Will this be the piece that gets published?

Sometimes I feel like writing and nothing much will come of it. I will end up jotting down thoughts, discarding them and end up frustrated at having achieved nothing. Eventually, I simply shut down the laptop and turn to something else. Maybe next time.

Perhaps I shouldn’t just delete my ideas, though. Keeping a draft won’t hurt. It gives me the option to come back to it later when I may have something more coherent to say or discover what my point is.

And I know I shouldn’t let this frustrate me. Every word I write is an achievement, even when it ends up being deleted again. Sitting here and trying to get something done is better than avoiding it altogether. I find that frustrates me more than trying to write about three different topics and being overly critical with what I’ve written.

Right now, I just have to get over myself. I probably won’t be writing anything of any significance. But I have tried, and I have written about something that occupies my mind. If nothing else, it is good exercise.

This is true for everything we try to do. Whether that’s playing an instrument, learning a language, or any other challenge we face. As long as we keep working at it a little at a time, we can get where we want to be.

So, what if I go through several drafts that I end up deleting? I keep going and won’t let my frustrations stop me.

Doing our best on any given day may not always approach anything we would even consider ‘good’, but it may just be enough.

Where do I begin?

by 2clouds

Does it begin with an idea or with the mere desire to write something? I keep collecting ideas. I take a note on my phone. Or I use one of my many notebooks and jot it down.

To never return to it. Or to eventually return and wonder what I was on about. Or to discover that the idea had merit and might just be worth pursuing.

Then I do something else yet again.

Procrastination is the worst. One might argue that it serves its purpose. My all-time favourite writer, Neil Gaiman, is known to have taken ten or twenty years before finally turning one idea or another into a book. Coraline and The Graveyard Book spring to mind.

It’s not that I always just avoid writing. I mean, I love writing. I write every day. But working on an idea sometimes seems to require an incredible amount of effort. Deep down, I know it will be worth it to put in the effort. If only for my own sake.

Somehow, though, it seems impossible to even get started. An idea is not enough. I can keep collecting them until I have a whole book full of ideas. But that doesn’t make a story. It will never be more than a collection of ‘what ifs’. Starting points that never amount to anything.

That’s not what I want.

I had an incredibly lazy weekend. I don’t know whether I felt down or if it was the weather, which was too humid and occasionally too warm.

Perhaps I simply suffered too much sun on Friday, which is definitely a possibility as I was on assignment out in the morning and exposed to cloudless skies and a burning sun for more than three hours. I was pretty exhausted once I got home. Chances are, I needed the weekend to recover.

But I also promised myself on Sunday evening to be productive come Monday. I even made a to-do list for Monday and Tuesday. Thus far, I’ve ticked off all the items.

I also did plenty of writing, which was the main point. I kept the to-do list realistic and every time I ticked off an item, I felt satisfied. I’m planning on continuing that for the next few days and see how I go.

In any case, another item I will need to add is creative writing. Ages ago I had an idea for a story that has not left me, and I want to work on it. I’ve made a bunch of notes in a bunch of places and actually starting work on that might just be a good beginning.

When I started this blog, I had the idea of publishing the story in several parts here. It’ll be a while before I get there, but I certainly hope to have something publishable at some point.

I guess, when you don’t know where to begin, writing about it and sorting your thoughts is as good a start as any.

Dramatic afternoon skies over the North Atlantic.

The Empty Page

by 2clouds

Where do you begin when you have a million thoughts running through your mind, dozens of ideas, no thread to follow? There are so many things I want to write about. But I have to start somewhere.

So, I am starting here. With the challenge itself. To begin writing.

The empty page can be daunting. What to do with it? Which word to put first? Which ones should follow? Will I make a fool of myself when I put this ‘out there’?

But everything that stops us is merely in our heads. As is so often the case, we’re our own worst enemies. Nobody can stop us. Nobody ever truly has the power to stop us. Unless, we give it to them. But that’s on us.

The only one stopping us is us. The empty page just sits there. That it is waiting for us to put words down is merely our projection. We are waiting to put words down. We usually just don’t know where to begin.

Never mind that, though. Just get started. I am committed to this new project, which means I have to regularly post new content. Or, at least, re-post content I’ve written before.

That is a lot of work. I mean a lot. And that, too, is a daunting prospect.

But I am also looking forward to all of it and I am no longer afraid of the empty page. There will always be words ready to flow. Whether they are the ones I wanted to put down or not doesn’t even matter. Anything I write is good (not qualitatively speaking, mind you, but for the mere fact of having written anything at all).

Writing is good. It’s life. My life anyway.

As is riding. My motorbike. But more on that elsewhere 😉

Why write?

by 2clouds

It’s probably the first question you need to ask yourself. Or in this case, I am asking myself. Why do I write? Why do I feel the need to? Why does it seem to be the only thing that helps sometimes?

Anyone creatively inclined will have their thing… the thing they cannot live without. Have to pursue. Must do. Music, painting, drawing, sculpting, knitting, baking… make something… out of words, sounds, paint, clay or whatever materials are at hand.

The question should obviously be: why make art? Why follow any creative pursuit?

I use words. Always have. I have loved the written word… stories, really… since I first heard them and later learned to read them. And it wasn’t a big step to start making stories up myself and eventually to write them down. I’ve always had an overactive imagination. I’m an introvert. Most things happen inside of me before they are expressed outwardly if I let them out at all.

The answer is: just because…

There is no better answer. It’s part of human nature to create. To make things. We’re also incredibly adept at destroying things. But we do get to make things and have done since the dawn of time. It’s one way for us to express ourselves. And a way to ask questions, perhaps to attempt answers.

If there’s something you cannot live without, it’s worth keeping. That is true whether you create something, pursue any kind of sports or love someone.

It doesn’t matter if you’re doing it professionally or simply as a hobby. If you must write, then write. If you must run, then run. If you love someone, see if you can keep them around.

It’s what makes life worth living. It’s what makes life matter.

That’s the only answer I have. For me, it’s good enough.

Originally published on the 19th July 2018.