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This is my place.
Where I laugh and love and loathe myself.
Where I condemn and create and care.
It is a place where I convince and conduct myself.
Where I drug and disarm and dare.
It is a place where I scream and scar myself.
Where I worry and wait and wander.
It is a place where I help and hurt myself.
Where I pray and praise and ponder.
This is my place.
Not theirs or yours our ours.
This is my place.
Where I begrudge and bemoan and believe myself.
Where I dictate and dream and die.
It is a place where I move and mend myself.
Where I contemplate and cry.
It is a place where I fuck and forgive myself.
Where I fight and fail and fly.
It's a place where I break and bore myself.
Where I tempt and torment and try.
This is my place.
Not his or hers.
Not yours or theirs or ours.
Just mine.
Just mine.
Just mine.
This is my space.

Prerequisites for Creativity

To create, you need:

1. Time to develop your skills.

2. Confidence (high self-concept). There are risks involved with creativity. It can be scary to show people your work, and creativity can make people so jealous that they actually attack you. You need confidence to go ahead and create anyway.

3. A reasonably calm mood. Depression may be the most powerful creativity suppressant there is. Other forms of anxiety inhibit creativity too. When you are manic, you can be very original, but you are not necessarily able to follow through and develop your ideas into creative accomplishments. That is, creativity requires relaxation. Relaxing is the only way to give your unconscious mind a chance (which it may or may not take) to combine everything you know and everything you are thinking with everything else you know and everything else you are thinking until it hits on something wonderful. You need to completely let go and let your intuition and feelings take over.

4. Ability to remain alert while relaxed, that is, while your thoughts and feelings roam free. Here’s the challenge of creativity: to create, you need to leave your mind free to think and feel what it wants, except that it can’t fall asleep. If you are sleeping well at night, it should not be difficult to achieve this balance. But, if you are the type of person (like me) who was born unable to sleep soundly for eight hours a night, good luck! And if you are on psychotropic meds that dope you up, good luck!Have you ever been really tired, but you were trying to stay awake? You sat down and rested for just a couple of minutes — and you fell sound asleep. When you are tired, the only way to stay awake is to stay active. Since creativity requires relaxation, not activity, it can be very difficult to create when you are tired.

5. Good sleep patterns. Good sleep patterns usually consist of 6 to 8 hours of sleep through the night (although everyone is different). Any less than 6 consecutive hours of night sleep probably constitutes a poor sleep pattern. If a poor sleep pattern continues long enough, it will slow your thinking, decrease your motivation (“I don’t want to paint. It’s just too much work!”), and cause you to drop things, make mistakes, and forget things until you are tempted to give up trying to be creative.

Reality Check No. 1

I've come to the realization that I've lost touch with so much in my life in such a short amount of time that I'm having a hard time remembering what's important to me.

I don't take care of the house like I used to. I don't care for myself unless I'm forced into doing so. I don't write - unless of course you count the screenplay I routinely complain about. I don't read - something I dearly miss. I don't sleep. I don't eat much. I don't laugh - and when I do it's usually prompted by maniacal fits of grandeur and self loathing. I don't believe. I don't have faith. I don't exercise. I don't dream. I don't want. I don't cry. I don't die. I don't live. I don't feel. I just don't.

The one things that is for certain is that I DON'T LIKE LIVING LIKE THIS.

I want back what I had - even if it means struggling to maintain it. I just want to breathe again. I want to be able to see and feel and know pain - and I want to know that the pain is real. I want to know that I can live and have faith and be successful and believe in something other than the magic of disbelief. I want to laugh because I'm happy and cry because I'm sad. I want to take my medication like clockwork everyday and be productive and dream and read... and above all things... I WANT TO WRITE.

God, do I want to write.