I always start writing with a clean piece of paper and a dirty mind. 

Patrick Dennis

The idea for the blog, as I mentioned before, was not actually mine. I was persuaded to create my own space by my P. The whole process was, so to speak, unorganized and required quite a lot of concentration from me. I am not one of the people with great reserves of patience, however, falling into a kind of trance, I am able to do great accomplishments (my driving instructor says, when I fall into a trance nothing can stop me on the road, not even a solid wall).

Initially, there was one post and a short note about me. Everything seemed to have potential, and I felt that it was what gave me satisfaction. Being able to create something with my own hands gave me confidence and a kind of pride in my own work. I don’t mean outstanding writing or world-class reportage, but a substitute for the feeling that, after all, I’m not just another person in the crowd who has nothing besides breathing but person who wants to achieve something more.

Being creative was like a frustration for me to hybridize with the need to find myself. I derived a lot of joy from sketching until my, rather eccentric, 6th grade English teacher decided to correct my portrait of Christ – yes, that famous Christ in the flesh – and this made me realize that portraits were not my specialty, because the corrected drawing looked much better; I stayed with sketches of trees. I loved, also crocheting and knitting; I embroidered. I happened to embroider Christ once; fortunately, my English teacher didn’t correct it anymore – it probably would have turned out better, too. However, writing is something I love. It’s something I’ve been collecting for decades, unfortunately.

In the meantime, reading gave me plenty of satisfaction, which led to the realization that I didn’t have the talent of Bulakov or Agatha Christie, far from the storytelling gift of Gabriel G Marques, or the unparalleled imagination of Terry Pratchett or Haruki Murakami.  I spent most of my time wasting it. An ordinary person like me didn’t realize, though until recently, that most of us don’t even try to face our own weaknesses and go for the easy way so as not to feel responsible for the failure that probably awaits us.

‘Failure’ is a word, or rather the fear of it acts like artillery. It destroys ambition and demolishes creativity. It paralyzes your self-confidence and pulls up your desire to act. Such a STOP sign, which, I must admit, has become a spec for undermining my self-confidence and expecting nothing more from life, as if the very thought of writing triggers an avalanche of laughter in my subconscious with a pinch of irritation.

‘Faith’ is another word. Positive thinking and acceptance of failure as a learning process gave me courage. Maybe a little ‘Stop worrying; start writing’ by Sarah Painter contributed a lot. When the author writes “Tell yourself it is ok to write rubbish” and recalls the words of writer Julie Cohen “What beginning writers don’t know is that writing is mostly a process of failing… I think crap first draft is pretty important”.

Perhaps anyone with a desire to put words together into sentences and their own stories should read about the struggles of experienced writers from time to time to give themselves a little courage to create their own space, free from excuses and doubt. Your own unique ‘I’. Quite inspirational, don’t you think? As Edison, inventor of the light bulb, once mentioned, “If we all did the things we are really capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.”

There are plenty of such expressions, such as expressiveness, distinctiveness, passion, uniqueness… Most of us do poorly because we can’t break through the fear that crushes our self-esteem as well as our lightness of dealing with ourselves.

In conclusion, when I stopped looking for excuses and decided to write something, I stopped worrying. To hell with it all. It’s time to put an end to someone else’s expectations and start stimulating your creativity. Get up and move on, don’t look back, go forward (a bit like a cliché fortune cookie quote, but once you grasp it, it works, dammit!).

Yours L.