Monday 5 March 2012

You know those moments...

...where your just 'in the zone'?

Anyone with a bit of creativity must know what I mean. When the music is perfect and your playing better than you can, when the canvas starts painting itself before the brush caresses its surface, when the words write themselves even though your holding the pen? Thats what the last hour and a half have been.

For those who dont know how my brain operates (which is everyone including myself) everything is hand-written, in colour co-ordinated note books. If a character appears he has a back story, even if he's mentioned only once. They have a background, a personality and its all documented in my notes.

Then, after its all nice and neat(ish) I type it out....and TOTALLY go off on a tangent! Which isnt always a bad thing, some of the best ideas ive had and indeed the most interesting parts of the story have happened while ive been 'winging' it, but then other times I go back hours later hit 'select all' and the DEL key without a shred of remorse, only regret that I wasted so much time...but that did not happen tonight.

My fingers danced across the keyboard like lightning. Honestly, the space bar was tapping out a drum beat the speed I was going. I looked to my notes every couple of hundred words to make sure I was taking it in the right direction but otherwise disregarded the words id slaved over earlier.

3000 words, I re-read it twice. It had just as much pace the second time as it did the first. I actually found myself reading it and thinking 'Oh my god! What happens next?' Then I remembered I already knew and got a bit less excited BUT! That's not the point, the point is I was in the zone.

That is why I love writing. It is an outlet in which my imagination can run riot, where I can lose myself in stories of myth and magic and places that never existed.

I got to the end of my hand written notes (well almost the end...by the time I got to where I was going I had decided I was changing the end and DAMN all those that said I couldn't! :P) and decided I need a monster, but not an old monster, not the type Ive read about, even though I loved them, they belonged to someone else. I wanted to make my own. Then realised that was selfish, maybe other people want to make a monster to? Who am I to deny them? So I FB'd the idea and the response was great! ...Infact it's still going...lol!

...thats weird...I actually started my blog post by talking about my writing...huh, go figure?

In other news, I woke up with that infectious feeling this morning...not the bad kind of 'infectious' feeling where you dont want to get out of bed, the other one. The one that makes you think about how much time you've wasted in bed already and asks why the hell the kettle hasn't boiled yet. The sun was splitting the skies and the Clyde looked gorgeous with the tide in and a clear view of Greenock across the water. The air was Scottish (yes its a type of air...take it from someone who's travelled a lot, there is NOTHING quite like Scottish air!) and I was glad to be alive.

It was an infectious feeling, because it re-affirmed that I can do whatever I set my mind to.

If you read the title of this page youll see that I dont proclaim to be an extraordinary musician or writer for that matter. But I am an exceptional dreamer, because its important for everyone to have a dream. An ambition. A goal in life other than to live, grow old and die.

Some peoples dreams are easier to achieve than others. They want to find a partner, fall in love, buy a house, raise a child...indeed some of my friends have already achieved these dreams, and grats to them! It's fantastic that that is what makes them happy! But my dreams are bigger than that.

I dont want fame or fortune (although they would be nice) that is not what encourages me to go on, I want to create something that outlasts me, I want to be someone that makes a difference.

"I dont want to be an idol, I want to be an idea." - Wil Smith

I want to be someone people can look to and think "if he can shoot that high and make it, why cant I?"

But that means taking chances.

"I slept and dreamt a thousand new paths, I woke and walked my old one..." - Chinese Proverb


 Its easy to play it safe. Stick to the tried and tested, plod along and make our way...meandering through our own lifes. But that's not how you accomplish anything, let alone your lifes ambitions. To achieve a dream you have to prepare yourself to fall, because falling is NOT failing. Failure only occurs when we dont pick ourselves back up and try again.

A dream will only ever be a dream if there is no direction behind it, no 'drive' to push it forward over the mountains of doubt and endless hurdless that stand between me and my goal.

That is what the feeling was this morning. It was the 'drive'. It was that incredibly rare feeling that makes everything possible, that makes the falls hurt less and the getting up easier, it pushes us onwards and forwards towards achieving the incredible potential that is in all of us, the potential to do whatever we put our minds to.

I finished the night by watching two of my favourite moments in history on youtube.

Martin Luther King's address to Washington in 1963 and Barack Obama's campaign speech in New Hampshire 2008

Because "I have a dream"

...can I achieve it?

"Yes. I. Can"

Enjoy the week folks,

Dare to Dream...

SBP

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