Rekindling my creative side

I have always been a somewhat creative person. Not in the artisitic way, I can't draw to save my life, but with words. I was constantly writing when I was younger. I kept sporadic diaries and wrote a series of stories based on my teddies and the world they inhabited that could be accessed through a portal in my bedroom wall. I created characters for stories I would never actually write. That evolved when I entered my teenage years and I began to write stories based around myself and my friends, writing updates in numerous notebooks and me and my two best friends spent many a weekend writing stories, taking it in turns to write a section. I also discovered Harry Potter fanfiction in my teens and I was sucked into a world of canon and non-canon, ships and AU's and I loved it. In 2010 I wrote my very first piece of fanfiction and my archive at HarryPotterFanFiction.com now boasts six stories.

I discovered twitter and YouTube in 2012 and found the Booktube community. I had all but stopped writing (except for fanfiction) at this point and finding a group of people who shared their love of books was exhilarating. I created my own channel and made several videos but that also petered off quite quickly. I started this blog with great enthusiasm whilst I was working part time and for a while I was pretty consistent with my posts. After not writing creatively for a while having a blog was refreshing. I was able to once again pour my thoughts out on to a page.

And then that kind of grinded to a halt as well.

The truth is over the past few weeks I have been feeling incredibly creatively frustrated. I miss writing. Now I'm not one of those people for whom writing is like breathing. That's what reading is for me. But I do miss writing. I miss writing for myself. I miss envisaging myself as someone else and putting myself in a story. I miss keeping a diary. I miss writing fanfiction. I miss blogging.





The solution should be simple right? Just write. And in theory it is that simple. Except I feel like I've been away from writing for so long that I have forgotten how to do it. I have spent the last three and a half years of my life writing academically, analysing every single word I wrote and making sure that everything was as it should be that I have forgotten how to just put my thoughts down on paper.

It feels as though my imagination has dried up.

I am also extremely critical when it comes to myself. I have the old self-editor on all the time. I doubt my ideas and then never end up writing them down. I question that I actually have the talent to fill a page with words.

Which in all honesty is daft. I am doing that exact thing now am I not?

Another aspect that I think has added to my frustration is lack of time. I work full time in a school and most days when I get home I am far too tired to even think about writing. With me working in a school library I also have to read quite a bit for my job so that takes up a chunk of my after work time. I also go swimming twice a week, have a boyfriend and like socialising at weekends.

Where does that leave time to get back into writing?

The problem I have is that I want to do all of these things. I had great plans for relaunching this blog with ideas for weekly posts and features. I have a notebook full of fanfiction ideas. I know I could keep a diary if I put my mind too it.

And that is the problem.

I don't put my mind to it. I am an ambitious person who procrastinates on everything she wants to do. Most people would say to me, if you want to write then find a way to fit it in. Put aside time for it, even it if it is only 15/20 mins every few nights.

Maybe my ambitions are a little to big for where I am with my writing confidence right now. Maybe I should be happy with posting on here once a week and writing snippets of fanfiction. Those are the two areas I really want to work on. This blog and my fanfiction, because I know those are two areas I am good at when I put the effort in.

I think I also need to accept that when it comes to creative writing I may be rusty. That in order for me to feel good about my writing I will have to be patient. I have seen writing prompt books in places like Waterstones and I'm thinking of buying one as a way to restart my writing habit.

I can't keep using the fact I have limited free time as an excuse. I know that I can fit in at least 20 minutes of writing in a day somewhere. There's plenty of opportunity when the boyfriend is watching football!

So whilst it may be hard, I am making a pledge to myself that I will try harder with my writing. I will definitely be attempting to post on here more often. I am reading a lot more now so if nothing else I can post reviews. I'm not going to give myself a schedule but I will hopefully post once a week. I am also going to try harder with my creative writing. It will be hard but I am going to write even if I think the idea I have is cliched and crap.

I'm not searching for fame and fortune or attempting to be the next great literary writer. All I know is that I feel frustrated and that I'm letting my creative side slip away and I don't want that to happen.