Writing can sometimes be somewhat of a duel headed beast for me. On the one hand the actual process of writing can feel highly liberating and bring a sense of freedom I seldom find elsewhere. As I hammer the keys on my laptop and explore my thoughts, recent events in my life and share interesting facts I have found it can release a great joy from within. However the other head of the beast is the one that quickly follows the release of the written work.
As soon as the “Publish” button is hit on the blog page the first seed is sown and my doubts start to bubble up from the within. “Was there really any point in writing that?” “Will anyone like it?” “what will people think about me for writing that?”
These are usually only small thoughts but certain events can cause the seeds to blossom into full blown feelings of low self confidence. Someone telling me they read my blog recently, or a comment appears on the blog, or even something as little as noticing someone has visited from somewhere I don’t know [and thus I don’t know them, what would a strange think about what I’ve written!].
This experience is of course not limited to written works but to all sorts of creative things. Just before the Holiday I sang a song for the schools Christmas party. Although I have sung at open mic nights and other similar events many times before, my stomach was still turning like a butter factory. Straight after I finished all I wanted to do was to go to a corner and just act like nothing happened at all.
It appears that within me there are two forces competing with each other. The first loves do creative things and Loves to hear people compliment me for them [and perhaps really wants to be praised as well]. The other, meanwhile, hates to step out in a crowd and be thought of as different (at best) and bad at whatever I am doing (at worse).
And so that brings us nicely to all things blog based and in particular the first of one of my 2011 aims. Bellow is the first of the songs. Admittedly this isn’t one I really wrote. The words and foundation of the song was written by my friend James Townsend during our gap year in Leeds, However I have arranged it differently so it kind of counts…
Perhaps I have chosen this because it is the easiest to do [during this very hectic month] or maybe it has more to do with the slightly increased shelter for this, my first recording of singing online! Whatever the reason I hope you enjoy it.
