Things I'm bad at

I'm bad at many things: keeping plants alive, doing sports, playing video games... But just because you're bad at something now doesn't mean you'll always be!


1. Dealing with expectations

If someone expects me to be good at something, I'm going to suck at it. If someone tells me I'll fail, I'll do everything in my power to prove them wrong.

I don't know what it is. But whether it be air hockey or writing or video editing, if you have any positive expectations of my abilities, I'll for sure disappoint you. Not because I want to, but because my subconscious just hates me.

2. Wearing lipstick


It looks too fancy and I don't feel like myself, so I always end up wiping it off. I used to feel the same way about foundation and doing my brows. I just looked too put together and it freaked me out, so as a teen I would always blot some water on my makeup to make it look like I hadn't just done my makeup.

I'm bad at doing what I want to do without caring about other people's opinions. But I'm also extremely tired of doing my makeup because of other people, and not me. I'd love to wear lipstick sometimes and not feel like everybody's staring at me thinking, "she really thinks she's something". Because that shouldn't matter! Why is it so hard?!

3. Dressing for the weather


I'm always hot, and even when I'm cold I feel hot. So one winter I nearly lost my toes because I just didn't realize how cold they were when I was out on the lake. My blood in my toes almost completely froze and my toes were slightly purple when I got home, and then it took them 40 minutes to melt down to a normal temperature. It's one of the worst pains I've ever suffered. Just imagine your hot blood trying to squeeze through frozen veins. I was screaming.

I lost feeling in two toes for about a year, and even now, two years later, one of them still feels tender when I go swimming or the temperatures drop. I've got a super sensitive middle toe, yay!

I should wear jackets, hats, scarfs and mittens when it's cold! I should learn to dress in a way that helps me stay healthy, I'm an adult now!

4. Walking in high heels


I don't think it's natural. It hurts like a lot. But women who are able to walk around in those torturous things look so freaking graceful and beautiful, and so I keep trying. But one hour in heels and I give up.

I would really like to wear my high heels more often though. Because they make me walk with better posture and feel more confident. Everybody deserves better posture and confidence.

5. Taking my pills


I've got a mood disorder called cyclothymia, which needs to be treated with pills. But sometimes I can go three days without them, because I forget to take them. So suddenly I'm acting all strange and feeling these unexplainably difficult emotions, and I don't know why. Well, not taking my pills, that's why!

I really need to get better at this. I want to be a stable-minded human being.

6. Replying to messages


I'm terrible. I see a message, I decide I'll reply later when I can use my full attention on that person. But then hours go by. Sometimes days. And I feel terrible.

I don't want to be a terrible human.

7. Working out


I really used to enjoy running. I was pretty good at it. I was in good shape. But then I just gradually started running less and less for a plethora of reasons. And now I barely do stuff with my body at all. I love team sports, and I still love running. It's just hard to find people to do sports with and it's hard to place running into my schedule for some reason. Too many excuses not to work out, basically.

But I should. Because I want to be healthier, and happier, and better-looking. I want to actually think about how I treat my body. These days I just couldn't care less about how I look, but I think I want to care a bit more.

8. Going to bed early


I'm a morning person. I love waking up early, starting my day productively and watching the sunrise.

But most days, my daily activities or tasks just don't go well with that, so I end up staying up really late and then I wake up late and grumpy.

When I wake up early, I always have a 80% chance of my day ending up awesome. But when I wake up late, it's pretty much a lost case already. I just feel so tense and irritated and grumpy all day. I really need to go to bed earlier and fix this!

9. Watching tv shows and movies


When I was younger, I loved binge-watching shows and pulling all-nighters watching six movies in a row.

But now I'm a film student, and I don't feel like doing that anymore.

I know I should watch a lot of shows and movies. I feel a lot of pressure and guilt about it!

But I don't watch anything, because I'm never in the mood, or if I am, the thing always ends up disappointing me because I overthink the characters and the plot and the subtext of the dialogue or the time stamps when plot points occur.

So usually I turn to youtube for entertainment, because it's less structured and actually manages to surprise and entertain me. Which can be a good thing, because there's a lot of educational content on there. But it's also a big time trap.

And it's not going to help me much when it comes to writing scripts for tv and film... Because in order to do that you need to actually watch tv and film, you know.

I just find every tv show with fascinating potential to be a disappointment, and movies are hard to find time or energy or concentration for. So if I watch anything, it's old Friends episodes that I've already seen 4-7 times, or The Office us, which I've watched even more times, or wacky cartoons.

I think I'd be a lot better at school if I made it a point to watch one new movie every week and start watching some tv shows, too.

10. Being on time


I'm late, pretty much always. It's not much, usually a minute or two. But I just can't be on time. Especially not with my sleeping schedule being all messed up these days. I feel like it'd be easier if I woke up early.

But then again, if I start working on projects in the morning, I'll just be late because I lose track of time and can't stop working. So that doesn't really solve the problem either.

And if I make it a point to be 10 minutes early somewhere, I just end up walking around the block because I'm bored, and guess what that leads to? Correct, I'm late again.

There's just no cure for my tardiness. I'll suffer the embarrassment and guilt for the rest of my life. It's chronic.

I just wish I could be on time!

13. Being passionate


I used to be SO passionate about so many things! Books, movies, shows, comics, art, mermaids, animals, trees, nature, following all sorts of fandoms and being super excited about such small "insignificant" things all the freaking time.

Life was so full of joy back then, because I could make myself happy and excited so easily by just fangirling for a moment, or working on a research project on this new animal species I was fascinated by, or writing a new story that I'd just come up with, or reading fan fiction, or reading books, or watching movies. I was so passionate about so many things!

But as I've grown older, I've become really mellow and apathetic and uncaring about such things. I just don't ever get excited about books or movies or stuff like that. My fangirl days are over, and that realization really stings.

I don't know what caused this horrible adultness in me, but I want to become excited like a kid again. I still have so many things that I love and feel strongly about, but I very rarely let myself be truly passionate. Because that would be weird. Or people would judge me. Or I would look stupid.

I've just been taught by my teachers and parents and other kids my age to not be so freaking weird and passionate, because it's weird!

I used to post so many stick insect updates on facebook and pictures of details on my self-made mermaid tails on instagram, but then I went and grew up, got embarrassed and deleted them. And that's such a shame!

Being weird made me so happy! I want to be weird again! I want to fangirl about stuff on social media again and be judged by other 20-somethings who just don't get it because they're boring.

Passion is happiness.

I want to sit and research animal facts and watch nature documentaries for hours. I want to write stories that make my heart pound with excitement, and let myself be surprised by my own creations.

When I was younger, everything around me was full of opportunities and I was so curious and passionate about everything. I want to be that kid again.

12. Living in the moment


I'm always longing for something else. Some other place or some other time, some other people, some other project, some other food, some other music, some other anything.

I just find it hard to be content with what I have right now.

I'm very aware of it though, which makes it a bit better, because I'm not just constantly unhappy because of my inability to live in the moment. I know that I'm a daydreamer. I'm painfully aware of my desire to plan for the future instead of living in the now.

Sometimes I wonder if I should even try to live in the now if the prospect of an amazing future makes me so happy to think about? I love daydreaming about my future kids, pets, home, career... all that stuff.

So if I love it, and it makes me happy, should I not continue daydreaming?

Well yeeah... But I don't want to ruin the present for myself by focusing too much on the future. Because eventually that future will roll around, and I'll just still be feeling incomplete in some way. Moving towards a beautiful future that never turns out that beautiful because I keep waiting for it to become beautiful sometime in the future, when the beautiful moments are happening.

I don't want to miss out on life!

I'll have to work on my current circumstances, not my future circumstances. I want to live in the moment and have awesome memories to look back on. No regrets!


So, here we have it. A bunch of things I wish I could change about myself. Luckily, they're all things that I have control over, more or less. It's just all about putting in the time and effort and making those changes.

What are some things you're bad at that you know you should work on?

Have a happy weekend,
Em

NaNoWriMo Project: Royal Blood

(Royal Blood is not a title, it's just the first thing that popped into my head)

What are you working on this November?

I'd love to learn more about your project, so feel free to use these questions in a blog post of your own and share it in the comments!

What is NaNoWriMo? Click here to find out!


What is Project RB about?

It's a Romeo and Juliet retelling set in a viking society with magic and sea monsters, a prequel to my book A Raveling Night, and it's about the lovers that killed Emery's entire family.

I was inspired by the question: How much blood would have to be shed to give Romeo and Juliet their happy ending?



What's the genre?

YA/NA fantasy romance


Who are the main characters?

Mionaith Adron: charming, rebellious, curious, dishonest, shameless & impulsive.


Corran Koghen: shy, reserved, inventive, polite, secretive, cowardly & destructive.


And their both respective families with parents, siblings, pets and friends, who all get entangled in this whole tragic mess of a romance.


What do these characters want?

Mionaith and Corran both come from more or less dysfunctional families, and they want to just be someone, separate from their families, proving their worth.

Mionaith is tired of living in her magical warrior family's shadow and acting all rebellious to get attention. She wants to find her own place, go on her own adventure, and rise to her own potential.

Corran has strong morals and a great vision of what he wants Noriannd to be, but he also wants to make his father proud and be a strong leader like him--no, he wants to be better than him. But to win his father's approval he has to let go of his own morals and visions.


Name a few supporting characters?

Mionaith's two older sisters, Ghydis the bookworm and Fayvinn the daydreamer. Their mother, Queen Ryiah and King Haldor who saved the kingdom when the Koghen family stood helpless on the sidelines.

Corran's father, a Sea King also named Corran, who's bitterness and hatred for the Adron family has festered and grown for the past twenty years. Corran's older brother, Nadhgan, who hopes to become the next king of Noriannd.



What's the main conflict?

It's pretty obviously the fact that they have to hide their relationship while working with their own families to destroy each other. There's lots of conspiring and betrayal happening in this one.


What is the setting of the novel?

Project RB is set in the same world as A Raveling Night, but only taking place 20 or so years before the events of ARN.

The kingdom of Noriannd is a cold, harsh, mountainous place full of wolves, deers and ancient magic. The city that Project RB happens in is called Hordrigg and it's located by the sea, smelling of salt, fish and smoke.

If you're curious about my NaNoWriMo journey, and why I love this event so much, read my blog post about it here.







  

Today Marks One Month


Everything becomes just a teeny tiny bit more difficult when you move to a different country.

You feel like an outsider (and it doesn't help that you've already felt like an outsider in your home country/-ies). You talk differently. Some slang has to be explained to you, which makes you feel like a baby learning to speak, and sometimes your brain takes a bit longer to process what's being said because you're not used to hearing those specific words spoken in that specific context.

A fag is a cigarette, for instance. When someone is knackered, they're tired. If someone's chuffed, they're happy. A gutted person is sad.

You also suddenly realize you're using words you normally don't. Bin, trolley, litter, crisps, ring (as in "I'll ring her"), jumper, quid, cheers. And calling fries chips.

The doctor's office is called the surgery, the first floor of a building is actually the second floor (I know, so confusing!), sneakers are trainers, a zucchini is a courgette, an eggplant is called an aubergine, a truck is a lorry, cotton candy is candy floss, a parking lot is a car park, a gas station is a petrol station, and so on and so on.

It's not easy, growing up learning English from American tv and movies....

Also, you have to remind yourself to stop calling your trousers pants!

You don't know where to buy a toilet brush or normal cheese, or why doors open in the wrong direction, or why washing laundry is so freaking expensive.

When you go to buy groceries, it takes double the amount of time than before, because everything is in a different place, there are no brands that you're used to buying, you have to keep comparing pounds to euros in your brain constantly, you can't figure out which milk is the medium-fat one (apparently red milk is zero fat, and blue milk is full fat. But in Finland it's the opposite!), and in Lidl you have to be super quick to pack your groceries into your bag before paying for them, or they won't fit on the pay desk because it's tiny! (unlike Lidls in Finland, where we have looots of space to pack away our groceries in our own time)

And if you happen to have this strange habit of taking walks at 3 am, which is completely safe in your home town, you have to realize that you can't do that anymore. Because you might get stabbed in the butt. Which sort of stifles your freedom. Just a little.

It's weird to realize that you've never ever even thought about the risk of getting stabbed before in your life. Which makes me sound really naive and stupid, because that stuff happens all the time! But the only reason I've ever had to fear at night is if a man is walking behind me and I suddenly realize I'm a woman and pretty defenseless if he tried to, say, rape me. But even that fear strikes very rarely.

And while we're on the topic of feeling safe: you're wondering if you're ever going to get used to the constant sirens of police cars and ambulances going off in the background. (Where I used to live, I heard ambulance sirens like once a week or less, and I really can't remember the last time I saw a police car with the blinking lights on in Finland... 2017 maybe?)

Kind strangers talk to you quite often and you're still caught off guard nearly every time. And you're saying "Please" and "Thank you" so often that you wonder if those words even mean anything anymore.

And how the heck does one cross a road? It's a difficult skill to learn, but after 30 days of almost getting run over on a daily basis, you think you've finally got it down. Although you still feel like a badass rogue every time you dash out onto the road dangerously, while silently hoping you'll get to the university without having to call an ambulance for yourself.

Some days you spend the entire evening smiling and laughing and chatting to people, having fun and enjoying being a foreigner. Because it's sort of amazing to make fun of yourself and your own weird culture and just embrace the different kind of strangeness of the people around you. All of us are so weird! Every country is so weird, because humans are so weird! And it's awesome to just connect by telling each other stories about that shared weirdness which is called the human experience.

But some days you get home and cry for an hour either because you're still mourning your beloved baby pet and missing your family, or just crying simply because this new life is so overwhelming sometimes.

You feel guilty for crying though. You should be happy, right!? You're finally here, in Lincoln, after waiting in anticipation for months!

You made so many plans and had such high hopes! Just think of all the daydreams of the amazing friendships that would be made! The memories! The wonderfully English rainy days! And finally tasting fish & chips!

Yet now it's been a month and you still haven't had fish & chips.

What a disappointment.

Yeah?

Absolutely not!

And I've heard that fish & chips is totally overrated, anyway. But there is still time to try it!

I'm still getting used to a lot of things. I'm constantly learning and finding new English culture quirks and interesting facts and things that confuse me.

Yesterday my friend, who's also my classmate back in Finland, said: "It's funny how the two most boring people from the same school ended up coming to the most boring town in England."

I don't have 20 new friends who I hang out with all the time and go out partying with every week.

I haven't been outside of Lincoln much at all. I haven't been touristing like crazy around England and trying tens of different restaurants or seen many super famous English sights.

I haven't gone to a single party (although that's still on my list! I have to try at least one English student party!).


The only restaurant I've eaten at, I've eaten at twice... he he? (when you find something that works, you stick with it, yeah?)

BUT. 

I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything just because I'm not doing this exchange thing like most people.

I'm a slow human.

I like to sit in the university library and pick out piles and piles of books to read when it's raining.

I like to take long walks to Lidl and watch the soft reflection of rain clouds on the surface of Witham River.

I like to spend hours wandering around the outskirts of the city, listening to people chatting about relationships, sucky DJs, stressful deadlines, boring lectures or annoying parents as they pass.

I like sitting in my bedroom, rewatching the office or friends or reading books or writing stories with a cup of hot chocolate.

I like hugging the horses in the west commons, and petting little cats that jump out on the street and nearly scare me to death.



I like to wander around campus, just watching students be students with their macbooks and colorful backpacks and droopy exhausted gazes on Thursday mornings after Quack.

I like to be here, just being.

Maybe that makes me the most boring person ever. (or one of the two most boring people ever, lol)

But I don't mind. I like being boring, to be honest. Almost as much as I like Sainsbury's frozen vegetable pizza. Being slow and boring is fun.

(So PS: please don't expect me to be punctual. I lose track of time constantly and it's embarrassing. I'm sorry, and I'm also not sorry. Clocks suck.)


My life one year from now

I'm a GREAT fan of nostalgia. A day doesn't go by where I don't spend at least ten minutes reminiscing about the past or thinking about what the person I was one year ago would think about the person I am today.

Coincidentally, this picture is from almost exactly one year ago.

And it goes both ways. I also spend lots of time thinking about the future.

Who am I going to be in one year?

What are my priorities going to be in October 2020?

Who are the most important people in my life? What do I look like? What does my home look like? Am I happy? What am I struggling with? Who am I helping? What is my purpose on a day to day basis? Who do I spend time with? What do I spend my time doing? How is my mental health? How is my physical health?

I have so many questions to Emilia in October 2020!

I hope she's happy!

I hope her life looks something like this:



National Novel Writing Month


Today I want to travel back in time with you and talk about my history with NaNoWriMo, one of the greatest annual events of all time.

It's when writers around the world pledge to write a 50,000 word novel in November, encourage each other, join in writing sprints and try to just have fun with storytelling!

Nanowrimo is a non-profit organization that supports writers young and old with education and networking worldwide, also offering us sponsors and gift codes if we manage to 'win' aka write 50,000 words in 30 days. It's free to join in, so head to nanowrimo.org and register already!

Once upon a time it was the year 2014...

I was fifteen years old, and by this point I had written stories my entire life, but every novel I started turned into a failure, and I was struggling hard with my writer confidence.


During the summer I had written about seven different opening chapters to different novels. A futuristic space adventure, a gory dystopian zombie explosion romance, a heartbreaking robot invasion story about identity in a humanoid world, a badass assassin and princess love story, bloodthirsty mermaids eating pirates and taking over the world, dragons enslaved by half-elves breaking free in the greatest battle ever known (this one also very gory), a girl with fire magic hunted by every soldier in the kingdom because the king wanted to use her as a weapon...

You get the gist. I had an imagination, to say the least.

See, when I was younger it had been okay to jump from idea to idea and explore different worlds, tie plots together from different stories and just have fun with it because it wasn't supposed to make any sense. It was just something I did for fun, and it wasn't serious.

But around the age of 14 I struggled with my identity a lot, because people kept asking me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and they wouldn't accept 'singer' as a real answer anymore. It was cute when I was little, but 14 is the magic age when you're sort of a child but adults expect you to think realistically and strategically.

So I started saying 'author' because that was so much more realistic and totally didn't result in more rolling eyes and sighs... xD

But I've stuck with my decision, and ever since then the clock has been ticking, and adults have been expecting me to whip out the next great american novel or give up on my dreams.

Doubt me all you want, but this gal ain't giving up!

And this leads me back to being fifteen and writing all those opening chapters. I needed to start writing novels, and fast, or I'd have to get a boring real job, ew!

In the writer world, we have a definition for what was wrong with me. We call it Shiny New Idea Syndrome.

And I was done being plagued by fluffy plot bunnies and sparkling new ideas! I needed a cure!

So one day, magically, I stumbled upon nanowrimo.org while trying to find a solution for my problems. I discovered writing advice videos, blogs and oh so many communities of daydreamers just like me! I set up my own writer instagram account, registered for nanowrimo and spent all of October doodling in class and inventing cool names for my deathly vampire cast.

My parents didn't like that I spent so much time at the computer, and they couldnt' quite understand how this nanowrimo thing was for me. So every day after school I would stay in the corridor and write until I was so hungry I had to go home for. I will forever cherish those moments, although I never finished that novel either, or won my first nanowrimo.


But it was the first time I wrote over 20,000 words on one single project, and it gave me such a boost in confidence that I wrote two entire novels (horrendous novels, let me tell you!) in my remaining time at high school: 68,000 words (my first nanowrimo win in 2015!) and 56,000 words (my second nanowrimo win in 2016!).

Luckily they were very short, so I don't feel that guilty for totally giving up on them. Those novels were so bad! But they were amazing practice! Because of them, I knew how to write a book from start to finish.

I graduated high school in 2017with a much clearer idea of who my author identity was and what genres worked best for me. And I don't think that would've been the case if I hadn't pushed myself so hard to write 1,667 words daily each November.


In the fall of that year I started university, and although I enjoyed it, things started to go downhill from there. I couldn't sit and write stories at school anymore. This education had to be taken seriously, and I had to be fully present! And as it turned out, I stopped writing almost completely.


Last year when I was very depressed, I participated in Nanowrimo and pledged to write every day just for myself. I wrote poetry, continued old projects, journaled my feelings and even scribbled up some old songs... And I made it to the finish line and bought myself Scrivener with the winner discount. I won Nanowrimo 2018, despite all odds!


And here we are, in 2019, many lessons learned and many mountains climbed. I'm in a much better place mentally, I have ambitious novel-writing plans for this November, and don't tell anyone, but I've already started writing my Nanowrimo novel. Shhhh. Sometimes you just can't help yourself.

This has been my Nanowrimo Journey. 5 Nanowrimos and 3 wins later, I'm proud of all the 248,047 words I've written so far.

Happy Nanowrimo 2019, and may the odds be ever in your favor!


Now go add me as a buddy! My username is Storyworldofem (who could've guessed?)

Click here to learn about my Nanowrimo project!

Much love,
Em






I am a recipe for disaster

But this recipe tastes like heaven.

Recipe:

- Mushrooms
- Baby corn
- A tiiiiny bit of butter or oil
- Tomatoes
- Fresh mozarella
- Season with salt, pepper, chili & herbs of choice

Throw it in the oven for 20-30 minutes in high heat. 200°C or so.

- Optional: serve with potato salad

It's delicious! And super easy!





Settling in & struggling





As you may know, I've now lived in a completely new place for two weeks. And it's been wonderful.

There's so much to write about that it overwhelms me and I can't choose what's the most important. I've had my first tears of homesickness. Or not homesickness per se... I've missed my family and cried a bit when I talked to my mom and played hide and seek with my youngest lil sis over video call. And then my baby guinea pig passed away unexpectedly last week, causing a full-on crying marathon. It's been rough.

But also wonderful!

Lincoln has an overflow of pretty details and magical little crooks and corners and stories everywhere, waiting to be told.




I have tried to not spend too much time writing in my bedroom, despite feeling super creative, because I want to focus on the people around me and make some new friends (who I can then later ignore completely when I lock myself in my room and write an entire novel in November for National Novel Writing Month loool).

I want to write more though... Scribble and daydream and type little scenes here and there and tie them together like a wordsmith with a magical thread. I know smiths don't work with thread but nobody says "word tailor", so you have to just get my point anyway.


It's honestly been super hard to not be writing when everything around me is so super duper beautiful looking and magical.



But as life settles into its normal routine, I find myself struggling with the same things I struggle with wherever I go. Friends.


What I like to call The Great and Equally Confusing Human Interaction Dilemma.

"I crave human interaction a lot more than I wish I did" is something I say a lot as a shy extrovert who wishes she could be more introverted, because then it would be less painful when I'm incapable of just going to meet new people and making new friends.




I sit and think, "I wish I could be more fun to be around. Either I talk too little or I talk too much, either I'm too weird or not weird enough, either I don't make enough jokes or I joke too much to the point where people get uncomfortable and hate me. How can I never be just enough? Not too much or too little, just enough?"

Dear internet friends, I feel like I'm not alone in feeling socially estranged a lot of the time. And I know that it doesn't help to overthink things. I know that making friends takes time and that it will happen eventually.


I know.


But I still can't help feeling a bit awkward and strange, and fearing that once I do make those friendships happen, it's already time for me to leave.


Wouldn't be the first time that's happened.


I've also been thinking about how this whole "let's travel the world!" thing might be a protective mechanism that makes me only become friends with people I know I will only spend time with for a short amount of time... That would explain all those friends in different countries who I only meet once a year or so... I'm just afraid of being too much or too little, and people hating me. And if I never meet people, they can't hate me, and I win!


But thing is... I don't win at all.


Wow. Writing this really makes me see these weird mind patterns super clearly. They're really just thoughts inside my head! I tell myself all sorts of weird lies.


Luckily, I know that this feeling too will pass, like it always has before. I'm doing fiiiine.





Good things take time. And life's ultimately pretty amazing, despite everything 🌞🐥

But on a more cheerful note, I'm finally all settled in! My suitcases are empty and hidden away, all my clothes are hung up in my closet, my books have found a new home on my bookshelf, and this girl even made her bed--whaaat!!? 😝✌️

Chilling feels a lot more chill when I don't have a bunch of stuff scattered around messily. Makes my mind work a lot more efficiently.





Now I can sit down at my desk and work on school stuff, edit pictures, write blog posts and watch movies like a normal person.


I've been doing all of that in my bed for the past two weeks, and my sleep schedule has suffered.


And it only took me two weeks of procrastinating to finally be able to use the desk. Oh little me, a hopeless messy soul.


Oh, how much writing I'll be able to do! That reminds me: I had my first screenwriting lecture at Lincoln, woohoo!


It was great. We did some creative writing exercises & spent some time chatting about creativity. 
And turns out, a thing the lecturer said really stirred something in me.

At my uni in Finland we generally only do dramas because that's just what is accepted by the teachers. Or maybe that's just how I interpret their feedback. (maybe it's just me?)


But this new lecturer talked about these crazy wild ideas and told us we could do anything! Even fantasy!


And I'm going WHAT??! REALLY!!? I CAN DO WHAT I REALLY WANT?





I just couldn't believe how excited I got out of a sudden, because I hadn't even realized how stifled my creativity has gotten in these 2 years at film school. (again, maybe it's not film school. Maybe it's my fault. Who knows?)


When I was younger I always used to write those weird, sudden story ideas down and thought they were awesome. But these days, I just immediately go "eh, that would never work" and forget about them.


Just because I think that it wouldn't be interesting or fun to anyone other than me.


Because I've gotten so scared of being judged and not fitting the mold of the film & tv industry. Because at the core, I'm afraid of not being liked and not fitting in.


So that was a fun realization to have in the middle of a lecture. Sweet.




I think I have a lot of growing up to do when it comes to not giving a *bleep* about what other people think.


I can't expect others to hand me creative freedom on a silver platter. If I want to create something, then I go and create it, duh.


And I want it on a GOLD PLATTER!! Because gold looks better on me! *hair flip*




I feel a bit stupid but that's also just part of the process. I'm here to learn 🌞🤟


I can't wait to wake up tomorrow and have a cup of hot chocolate and then sit and write before heading to school.


It's going to be AWESOME. 📝🌼 Hope you have a beautiful day of inspiration and may you dream wonderfully strange dreams when you go to sleep.


BYE! xxx







PS. I love you and miss you little Pixie. See you on the other side where grass is evergreen and there are more cherry tomatoes than you could ever eat. One day I'll be able to think about you and not bawl my eyes out (but today is not that day). I've been finding comfort in hugging horses, but it isn't the same. I wish I could've been there to hold you one last time. Kisses and chin rubs from mommy.