During the last few nights I have been waking up with ideas for stories tumbling around in my head. Small ideas, but nevertheless they were able to bring me back from my dreams.
It is not unpleasant to look at them, lying in the dark. To make them spin around in my head and see the different angels. They obviously want my attention, so maybe it is time to take them to change them into real stories. But I am hesitant; they seem so small. Shouldn’t I leave them in there a little longer? Don’t they need to grow a bit more? Or am I just procrastinating?
It is this hour of the night where it’s easy for chaos to creep in. I love what I see in my head, but I’m also afraid to ruin these sparks once I take them out and put them into words. Can I even be a writer? Who am I to think I can pull this off? I twist and turn.
Time to take control: there’s no reason to be afraid. Every story ever written is related to a primal story. Somewhere there is an old sea that has been there since the beginning of time. In the black water, slowly moving around like blind deep-sea creatures, the archetypal stories are found. Every story ever written or ever told is in fact such a primal story. It was up from the deep, and on its way up evolved into a contemporary version of its original self. No matter how complex the result, the origin of every story is found in this black water. Or, even more simplified: you can every story put in the same schedule. Main character sets out to do something (A); someone or something (B) gets in the way, and then what happens (C).
This is comforting: I feel my mind relaxing. I can do this. I know I shouldn’t be afraid. It is up to me to makes something of my own ideas. Claim my space and create my own compositions; tell stories with my own characters and settings. Use my own words. I look at the alarm: two more hours before I have to get up. It is time to start, I feel it.
Maai’s Creative Portfolio 
As ever your writing resonates with me.
‘Can I even be a writer? Who am I to think I can pull this off?’
Ho ho, the niggling self-doubt Sprite that haunts us all, bullys our delicate egos and pours oil onto our creative oceans.
So glad I got back here. It might inspire me to set sail, to write something worhtwhile after months in the doldrums.
Hi Ashley,
Thank you. It is encouraging that you like what I put down here, that actually means a lot to me.
It helps to have some supportive voices out there, and you are one of them; I greatly value your opinion, and it help me to get past that self-doubt.
And funnily enough, the writing in English that I do here makes it easier to lay that ugly dragon. The building of my own little world in my blog is helping me to believe I can do it in Dutch.
I do hope you’ll go back to writing again yourself, and dig up that plan to start a blog of your own. I’ll be looking out for that.