Welcome to the blog
This is my blog archive. My new writing lives on Substack.
Design your own sustainable creative life
It's easy to dream of a creative life.
To build one that fits with everything else in your life is harder.
A sustainable creative life is one where you can keep creating and keep living, without burning out. I'm not talking money here, I'm talking life.
Finding creativity among dishes and bills. Creating in spare moments when you're tired and overworked. Getting out of procrastination mode when there's endless other things you could do. Not pushing yourself so hard that life becomes stress. Making time for making.
Let's design your creative life. Let's find a plan that helps you create, in real life and not just in a perfect fantasy world.
Focus on the draft and just keep writing
August was a month of fighting to keep writing. I struggled with creative frustration in my painting and by focusing on the current draft, I could keep painting and writing.
Towards the end of the month, my summer vacation was over and moved into a new apartment with my boyfriend. It forced me to take a break and I worried I wouldn't be able to get back to writing afterwards.
Is perfectionism limiting your creativity?
Do you fall prey to the perfectionist mindset from time to time? Does it keep you from exploring your creativity, from putting your art out into the world, or from even creating at all? Let's have a look on what the perfectionist mindset looks like, what it really is and what the antidote is: the draftist mindset.
A guide to starting that creative project your heart is longing for
Do you have an idea calling for your attention? A voice in the back of your head, whispering and tugging, telling you there's something you want to do? But for some reason, you haven't gotten started yet?
Then I have to tell you something: you're ready. Now let's get started.
Dear Dream. I pledge you my pen.
This is a letter to my dream, that unreasonable, irrational dream. Telling it that I hear and I am listening. It's a letter of promise to fight for it, no matter what the world says.
When you feel like throwing your creative project across the room, read this instead
You know the feeling, right?
You have an idea. Something you want to create, a vision, a little dream longing to be brought to life. It's tickling the back of your head, pulling you towards creating. You decide to do it. It's going to be brilliant. It's such a beautiful idea.
And then you just can't do it.
Let's talk about that frustration, of what we can do instead of throwing things across the room and give up on our projects.
Open up to creative freedom and experimentation
July was a month of trying to get back to writing on my novel. I wrote, struggled, contemplated. Through embracing my creative freedom and forcing myself to experiment, I opened up to a more process focused way of creating, that helped me finally work on my novel.
Once I really sat down to write, the demons of self-doubt came rushing forth, but I didn't give up and managed to create my way through them.
Reclaim your creative freedom
When you ponder an idea.
When you sit down to create.
When you sketch out a project.
When you decide to share or not share.
When your heart beats with improbable dreams.
What whispers of restraint do you hear?
What lessons, doubts and rules to you follow?
Dear Inner Child. Thank you.
This is a letter to my inner child, thanking her for sticking around when I thought I needed to get rid of her. When I locked her in a dark room deep inside of me, and threw away the key. This is a thank you, and a promise.
Guide to a creative summer project
Summer is a time we often want to do something creative, something we don't have the time or energy to focus on when we're stressed by work and in the middle of our every-day life. But it's also a time to relax and reload, and a too ambitious summer project can get in the way of slowing down.
If creativity is calling for you this summer, let these four questions help you choose a good summer project.
Half a Fear Year to build a creative life
My Fear Year started as an idea. Now I'm halfway through it. It's time to take a look on what this year has brought so far, and what I want the next six months to be.
I have now built the base of my creative life, and it's time to take it up a notch. It's time for my next level.
Do it your own way
June was a month of stepping out of my inspiration bubble and questioning what I'm doing. I got the distance and clarity to understand that I'm in fact living a creative life, and that everything I should do forward should be on my own terms.
I found myself face to face with the choice of breaking the rules and going my own way, or not. Finally, I chose the former.
The Dauntless Creative, or What I learned about fear from the Divergent trilogy
I didn't know much about the Divergent trilogy when I started reading the first book, I just longed for an engaging read. But I soon discovered it was actually perfect books to read this year, the year I'm facing my creative fears.
The fears they face in these books are not the fears creativity bring. Their fears are the ones associated with survival, but different fears work pretty much the same at it's core. They come from the same part of our brain, from the same instinct of survival.
To live a creative life means we need to face those fears.
This is what the Divergent trilogy can teach us about that.
Dear Confidence. Where the hell are you?
This is a letter to my confidence, begging it to come back. When it has bailed, left me with doubts and fears, alone to finish a project I no long know how to finish. It's a letter written in anger and fear, revisiting the times when confidence was completely gone from my life.
You decide the limits of your creative journey
There's the limits of our physical reality, and then there's the limit we put upon ourselves. The petty, unnecessary and fear based limits. The ones holding you back from living up to your own potential. The limits that becomes reality, through us believing our doubtful voices.
There's enough limits in the world without us adding to them. Let's bring them down instead.
Create space for consistency, growth and rest
May was a month of finding balance in my creativity. I needed both to work on my big and small projects, but struggled to find a way to do that, without overworking myself. During May, I tried two different creation plans.
In May, I also started facing my fear of teaching and worked to bring my whole visual identity together again.
Let your weird self show in your art
Do you dare to show your own weird self in your creativity? Are you scared your art just blends in with everyone else's? Do you want what you make to stand out? Then you'll want to learn to tap into your unique weirdness, your quirks and whatever makes you you.
It'll strengthen your creative voice and style, and help you make things no one else can make.
Dear Heart. I want to be vulnerable again.
This is a letter to my heart, telling the story of how it got buried deep inside me, behind a hardened rib cage and thick skin. This is me reversing the trip, to hear the beatings of my heart, to follow it's longings.
How I overcame my fear of drawing
One of the unexpected paths that emerged when I decided to follow my fear this year was the fear of drawing. If you're not in the boat with me here, it may seem a bit silly. Seriously, how scary can it be to draw? That's something most of us have done since we were kids. Well, for me, that was the problem.
Today, I reveal the steps I took from scared with no self-confidence to calm and confident when I draw.
What lies beyond the edge of your creative comfort zone?
Imagine a meadow with a fence around it. It's warm and sunny, little bees and flowers moving slowly in a light breeze. Well walked trails go up and down through the grass, you stroll around on them. One of them eventually takes you to an edge of the meadow. You stop, look.
Beyond the fence is a forest. The forest is darker, filled with shadows and uncertainty.
That's where we're going today. You coming?