I know, I know my blogging skills have been slacking lately. I’ve been awful and all over the place for so many reasons I can’t list them all on here. I’ve had family stuff, illness stuff, house stuff name anything and it’s probably been a giant pain in the ass in the last few weeks but thinking about it this didn’t help me to understand why I not only wasn’t writing but why I didn’t want to. It seems odd that his time last year I was trying to write a novel and now I can’t bring myself to write even a song, but I think I’ve worked it out. Confidence. 

A lack of confidence with my writing is something I’ve never felt before. I’ve never really had to feel that way about it, my readers have always been happy and that was enough for me. Then I enrolled on a Creative Writing course and for me it couldn’t have been a worse decision. Now I’m not knocking Kingston, I love my uni with a passion but it’s not secret I’m leaving the Creative Writing course. I just don’t enjoy it, I haven’t really since the first week. I couldn’t get creative from the lessons, it stopped me being creative if anything and made me worry far too much of what others thought of me, I don’t need any more of that! 

Music and writing are now two things I can’t be academically involved with, I don’t want to do it to please people or to their rules. I want to be able to use the words I use and not be restricted because someone doesn’t like them. I want to be free to write in a way that suits me. 

The thing is creativity is where I can be myself and not have to worry and I’m afraid doing Creative Writing as a course really knocked my confidence. While my peers loved my work there were more than one academic who didn’t because it wasn’t their style. I now have a load of rules in my head that are stopping me from writing. I don’t review any more because I’m so nervous about making a mistake and not ‘grabbing’ the reader. I’ve forgotten what I started doing 2 years ago and why. I wrote because I loved it and that bought people in, it still does when I stop worrying enough to write one. 

I’m not knocking all Creative Writing courses, my classmates seemed happy and came up with some fab stuff but it just wasn’t for me, it made me really unhappy and kind of made me forget why I write. I don’t want to worry about nit picking and the correct punctuation when I write something for the first time. I did have two fantastic teachers this year, both I value very highly and they liked my work and gave me constructive criticism if and when it was needed. 

My  point is that now I’ve decided to stick with academics I’m hoping I can have creativity as fun and release. Do I want it as a job? Of course I do but I know that kind would be different. Now is the time to trial things, make mistakes and then go for it with the writing and the music.