Capabilities to create.

I haven't written in a while, because sometimes I truly have no words to say. One week, they are like a waterfall, endlessly flowing through my mind that I often cannot grasp my thoughts quickly enough, and the next week it's like a drought, where endlessly I yearn for inspiration whilst nothing arrives.

Like everyone else, I celebrated new year. I cherished returning back to London after spending time in Somerset with my family for Christmas. Though it was great to see them, to be frank, I didn't deal well with the pressures that they each have put on each other.

Returning to the city, unusually, felt like a break – something done in order to unwind and relax – which was the opposite of what I normally expect. 

The countryside, and in particular my patch of South Somerset, should be a refuge in this world, a place to escape to when, as often happens, I find myself with nowhere else to turn to. But less and less am I inclined to return back to my hometown for this purpose. Of course there is family which will always draw me back, but it's not for my own sanity that I'm returning any more.

Each time I count down the seconds before Big Ben chimes in the new year, broadcast into every home in the nation, I think of how lucky I am to be where I am, to be experiencing what I have experienced, but naturally the time around new year gives us a moment to reflect on what we are doing, what we are reaching for, what we can change.

In a post to Instagram, I commented that I would read more literature this year in order to educate myself and therefore become better in my own creative writing, hoping to have a finished story by year-end. This continues an aim I have last year to immerse myself in books that during my upbringing I'd neglected.

Proudly, though cheating somewhat because I started in the last few days of December last year, I have just finished my first book – 'Call Me By Your Name' by André Aciman. If only I could capture a fraction of what he has in his story of Elio and Oliver, I would be fortunate.

But at the same time, I am stuck with recurring self-doubt about my capabilities to create, questioning everything I have ever worked on and its ability to communicate. This should really be my new years resolution: To suffer through creating each and every day despite the pain and the hurt and the anger in order to create something which is not only effective in telling stories, but in a way that is beautiful.

I now only need one thing – the self-belief to think that words I commit to the page are worthy of being read by another.

Happy New Year!