Up for some challenges?

[Is this an April Fool's joke :P...? NO IT'S NOT!!]

Hello my dears!

How are you all? I hope everything is okay. Once again, I participated in the "100 Bilder - 100 Geschichten" competition. I am kind of nervous once again, but I don't want to think about it too much as it is just a writing challenge. :) And I really am in the mood of "I want to participate in more challenges now!".

I know that NaNoWriMo will not be any sooner than November. I know that the February Album Writing Month is over for now, too. But I did find some inspirations on challenges, and I will most likely make something out of this. Meaning: There will HOPEFULLY be more posts in the future.

One mistake I don't want to make all over again, however, is to "take breaks" because these "breaks" usually lead to a prolongued time when I feel like, "Meh, I don't want to create anything!", so I will... Make sure I get a decent amount of rest and pauses, but I will try to keep being on track. :) You will learn about the challenges altogether soon-ish. Ah yes, and concerning my participation in the "100 Bilder - 100 Geschichten" competition; I cannot show you the thing I wrote before the beginning of May, so please be patient.

Other than that, I read the following article yesterday and it really inspired me (I even dreamed of recording a demo CD and trying to find out whom to send it to afterwards when I was asleep.): J. K. Rowling inspiring us to keep going, despite being turned down by publishers.

To be honest, I think this can apply to so many publishers of creative content - not just in the written form. And it even counts for ANY dream job one may have, because even then you often depend on the decision of somebody else... Sometimes it is the decision to let you study the field you have chosen, sometimes it is the decision of a future employer, and so on. I think the entire article just screams "DON'T GIVE UP!" from the top of its lungs (if it HAD lungs!)... So, yeah, don't give up. I won't either. :)

I look in the mirror, and all I see......

Hello dears!

I have had a tough few days prior to this one, but I wanted to show you my poem for the "100 Bilder - 100 Geschichten" competition still. The picture showed a parcel which was partly broken, hence the... Ah, you will see!

Das Geschenk

Das Paket war angekommen und schon, so nahm man an,
Waren darin die Geschenke präsent für jedermann.
Schleunigst wurd‘ geöffnet, was der Karton versprach,
Doch als sie hineinblickten, lagen die Gefühle brach:
Ein schmutziges Paar Schuhe und ein angenagter Brief,
Was immer angekommen, betrachtete man schief.

„Ich habe nichts zu geben“, so sprach nun das Papier,
„Doch diese Schuhe trugen mich von euch bereits zu mir.
Und obwohl die Wege schwer und steinig waren, war
Der Gedanke an die schöne Zeit mit euch stets für mich da.
Das Leben jedoch hat nun and’res mit mir vor,
Doch bevor ich gehen muss, nur ein Wort in meinem Ohr:
Sende! Send‘ das Leben den Kindern nur zum Dank,
Auf dass sie leben lernen, und niemals werden krank.“

Translation (roughly, as always):

The Gift

The parcel arrived and already, one expected,
There were gifts present for everyone.
Quickly one opened what the cardboard promised,
But when they looked inside, the feelings lay idle:
A dirty pair of shoes and a letter eaten away,
Whatever arrived one looked at disapprovingly.

"I have nothing to give", the paper spoke now,
"But these shoes carried me from you to me already.
And even when the paths were hard and rocky, there was
The thought of the beautiful time with you always there for me.
Life, however, has something else planned for me,
But before I have to leave, only a word in my ear:
Send! Send life to the children just to thank them,
May they learn living and never become ill."

...

I hope you like it! I tried to stay as close to the original translation-wise in English, but there is a rhyming scheme still viewable in the original poem (a fairly easy one, I have to admit.).

Have a lovely rest of the day!

Am I doing this right?

Hey!

How are you all? I hope you are all fine :). I feel incredibly lucky and happy, and this has been going on for quite some time now, which is surprising to me as well. I know I never really talked about the topic of mental health and I don't know how much I will get into this topic as of now, but I feel like talking about it, so why not?

Okay, so: I have been diagnosed with a psychotic episode in 2004, and in 2006 I experienced the second one. However, I must also say that ever since I was about 10 years old, I felt not really happy with myself. I don't know what to say about this; I don't want to trigger anybody, but let's just say I started early on doing things to myself that were not very "nice"... I never really overcame this mentality of self-destruction, and never actively really tried to get over it. Okay, I *did* try out living with the LOA and tried living 28 days just giving stuff to others, but I always slid back into my mindset of being worthless, dumb, uninspired, neither creative nor intelligent and so on. It was very hard to live wiht this, especially since I did try to help people who were going through similar stuff in their life, and I felt a bit like a hypocrite (No offense to the people I mean at this point; YOU REALLY ARE WONDERFUL PEOPLE AND I AM INCREDIBLY GRATEFUL FOR HAVING YOU IN MY LIFE!!).

So after having hit the ground in December 2015 again, which I will not go into greater detail now about, I somehow had my mood lifted again, and I don't really know what did this or why? I mean, I really engaged in more fun activities, I drew or painted or sang or whatever-ed whenever I felt like it. Also, as I told you already, I picked up language practice and made some progress with this now, too :). When I felt like, "Oh I want to do XYZ!", I moved things around until I was able to... I even participated in said competition, and even though I didn't win in the end, I did feel good about it, because I did have the courage to send the poem away!

I don't want to claim this IS the key to overcoming mental illness in general, but (a) I feel more open toward seeking for help actively now, and (b) it helped me to just engage in some activities without overthinking stuff. I know this is really hard to do, especially when you are stuck or having depression, when you feel like everything you loved doing loses its meaning and you just want to lie around and do nothing (At least it was like this to me; my favourite activities started meaning less and less to me, but I forced myself to remember and think it through then, and I *always* came to the conclusion my heart was yearning for making music, which, in turn, made me happy again and made me stand up again.). But yeah, of course I am not you; I don't know what you need in all cases. I just wanted to write this, and maybe some of you who are going through a particularly tough time in their lives will find the will to get out of there, too.

I cannot say I am 100% recovered of course, and it will take a long time to overcome ways of thinking I kept "dearly" to myself for almost 22 years now, but right now, I feel like it is worth it. Creativity has a healing effect sometimes, it is unbelievable... :) If you DO want to know something or comment with your concerns or whatever, please do so. I really don't want you to feel uncomfortable, but ---- please don't give up. I know I don't know you all personally, but I strongly feel it is saddening I don't. Why? Because everybody has an enormous potential for personal growth, for creative endeavors, for making the world a better place inside of them, and I firmly believe this... Everybody is worth getting to know, everybody is worth speaking to. And I really believe that everybody has a piece of the puzzle hidden in their hearts, thus being an important part of the world's population... This includes YOU, too, my dear reader! :)

I don't really know what else to write about... There are so many things I could do, but right now, my possibly biggest wish is to go to bed (it is half past 11pm now)... The sleepiness is probably also the reason this sounds very weird now altogether, but I really mean it! You. are. special. A special little snowflake, if you wish. Whatever you want to be, it is a part of you already!

Okay, my bed is calling me, and I guess this is just a sign of being tired (Thanks for reading, though!)!

~S. R.

PS: I also learned that doing stuff because I want to do it & NOT to fill entries in my blog(s) is the best way to go. :)

PPS: Please comment with any feedback if you have that. Just constructive criticism, please, though. Thanks.

[Nur wir]

Hello...

I have "lost" the competition, but I will continue participating in future ones nevertheless. Thank you to everybody keeping their fingers crossed and congratulations to the winner :)! I mean it. & I am really looking forward to reading their story or poem... I shall publish the poem I wrote here as soon as the winner's version has been published, too. Otherwise I'd see no reason in doing so!

Other than that, I ordered some fabric for making a tulle tutu, and I am looking forward to this task so much. It is - surprise, surprise! - tulle fabric in black... And even though the thought of making mistakes when making the skirt makes me nauseous, I still am very fond of it (the idea). It will be the first time I am making something clothing wise with my bare hands, and I hope that said hands will not get in my way. ;)

And the next point is a little unrelated, but still very important for me recently: The past 23 days + today, I spent learning mainly Italian, but also French, Russian and Swedish. But mainly Italian... Maybe some of you don't know this about me, but languages are really a part of my life I love working on. I know I am nowhere near fluent, not even in English, but still it makes me happy to practice foreign languages, and speak to other people in their native language. :] The upper languages are not the only ones I learned in my life, though.

Anyways, I'd really love to get some suggestions for blogs to read in one of the following languages: French, Finnish, Spanish, Japanese & Italian. It would be cool if those had to deal with stuff I am interested in myself... I want to make learning languages a lot more fun than just stubbornly sitting somewhere and learning stuff. :) And learning by doing is really important, too. I will keep my eyes open, though. :D

Thanks for reading & have a nice day...

They mean time... I mean... In the mean time...

Hello dears!

How are you all? In the meantime, I haven't done that much, except for entering another competition, but this isn't over already, so please keep your fingers crossed for me! I also started writing a new story, about a character I've "known" for -several- years now. I am really looking forward to the story progressing.

I also picked up the book "Living Out Loud" by Keri Smith again... Have I ever mentioned how much I love it and how inspiring / motivating I find it? :D I might write more about this soon-ish.

I desperately hope I can start working my way through the series of telling you how to play single songs. :) I thought I might make a video for this purpose (and maybe one day, I will) but as for now, I'd rather want to start doing it in writing. It is really easy, though. (I am not lying! It was just yesterday that I figured out how to play the X-Files intro on my guitar with this "simple technique" [[God, I sound like I have a lot of spam to come!! :P]]... But it is really a technique and it IS simple. And you'll get the info... Without having to pay anything!! :P)

Have a lovely (rest of the) day, my dears!

~S. R.

Does this count as "fanart"? I guess it does :D...

Hello dears!!

Happy new year to all of you!! :) I hope you had a safe and happy start into 2016...

I personally haven't made any resolutions for this year, even though I do plan to do some things and make an effort to do some things more often, in order to keep myself sane / get myself back from feeling utterly depressed, which unfortunately happened to be the way I was until maybe two or three days ago... I won't be going into that right now, though, but today I have already done two things:

1. I have started writing a song... It just really came to me so-to-say, and I must say, I already love the chord changes... :) What the text was about, I probably have more of an idea of than I think right now, but most of the time I do write lyrics / poetry, at least several years back, it was like "automatic writing" rather than anything else... This time again. I like it thus far, even though it is not finished yet!! :) 

2. I have listened to a song on heavy rotation for about an hour now, which is "Love's Not For Me" by Graham Gouldman, which was featured on the soundtrack to the animation movie "Animalympics". And somehow especially the line "And if you lose it's your mistake" always stuck out to me... I recommend you give this song a listen, and the movie is highly recommended, too!! :)

So, the latter really got very close to me... I eventually got out a piece of paper and drew the characters of René Fromage (a French goat) and Kit Mambo (an African lioness), but not in the usual picture shown of them doing what happens at the end of the movie (No spoilers intended!), but rather of them running towards each other behind the goal line... Behind them, they had left the running track which was also covered with and surrounded by barbed wire... And carried some wounds from this...

I must also admit, I have never really drawn a fanart of characters from an animated movie... Except for e. g. Sailor Moon and such, but never animals. I think you can say it like that. :D I hope you like it despite my non-apparent drawing skills...

Have a lovely rest of the day, dears! I really hope you will!!

Something's Fishy

Hello!

I could not really sleep last night, so I decided to paint something with felt-tip pens again :P... And somehow I have to add, I didn't know AT ALL what I was going to paint, but it was FUN, I can tell you :)!!

Something's Fishy

Oh dear. :) I will not explain everything you will see in this picture, though. It reminds me of my "ideal X-mas", although, yes, although I am NOT a fish. Also, I like the other fish doing striptease XD.

Below the X-mas tree, you can even read the words "Something's Fishy", and something REALLY is fishy about this picture. On the TV screen, you can see Kevin screaming because he is home alone... It is available on DVD in 3D now. With subtitles! And extras! Buy it! Buy! BUY!

Also, the fireplace reminds me of Harry Potter for some odd reason (Although I didn't want it to look like this, but it still does... Damnit!!).

I hope you had a night filled with sleep and/or filled with something you liked doing, dears! Have a lovely day and see you again soon!!