I am a spinning top, but when I fall there are no safety nets. Just pure darkness, into the deep black hole, pulled inwards by gravity.
I am darkness and light, pain and pleasure. I can’t tell the difference and I don’t want to. In my twisted visions there is no reprieve from the falling, no savoir at the end of the tunnel. No light in the dark caverns. There is nothing left except an empty hole.
I used to believe in happy ever afters, in love, in marriage… in kids. I used to. Now I don’t. I am a tired spent mess. In this messy maze, I cannot get out of… I can only believe in fairy tales. Why? Because I gave up on real life, and live in fantasy. In my fantasy world, I can be the Queen.. I can be supernova, I can be the light. I can save myself from the dark caverns and be that knight, instead of waiting for one. I have to find that rainbow wings to emerge out of the cocoon shell.
Sometimes I ask, if sacrificing my sanity for my art is all worth it, sometimes I say yes, sometimes I say no. But eventually I realised that it is a resonating yes. The meaning of life is the act of creation itself. There is no need for anything else. Even love suffocates you.
But creations? They are forever. They live on in the milky galaxy. They never disappear.
Our memories are like water in a plastic bottle. Once triggered, or poked, the water will flow out from the holes. Poke it too much and memories will drain out. Once the memories drain out, there isn’t anything left in the bottle. Till, it is repaired and refilled with fresh memories again. The beautiful thing is that this process can repeat itself till the bottle becomes thicker and thicker and no more needles can go through. But that’s the danger zone too – the only needles that can penetrate our memories are the needles directed to us by people whom we trust and love. The moment we start blocking those needles, is also the day that we lose the trust and ability to love them. The only way to overcome this is to fill the bottle up everyday with fresh loving memories full of positiveness and never ever poke the bottle.
A minion wrote to me and asked me to be more of an egoist. He said pain is not worth suffering for others. Well, I would have to say looking at analytics like that makes me very egoistic that I will approach one million YouTube views by the end of this month. For a solo production with elements of theater, dance and storylines it’s one of my milestones in life in line with the publication of Red Hourglass. I do not know anyone who is doing what I do and that makes me feel special. Most actors are hired by directors and never become directors of the play they are in. I climbed the steps from a flower girl to lead actress, continuing to my own YouTube channel production using the sheer will of my imagination. My artistry is what I wanted to do in my life so badly or I will feel dead inside. I am happy at my personal results and I am open for collaboration opportunities in near future. http://thescarletqueen.com
Rewatched Gackt’s concert; he left Malice Mizer, married and divorced a Korean woman, swore never to get married, started his solo career with great hits like (Les Miserable, Seki Ray) with poignant lyrics about lost love, covered Final Fantasy and Gundam songs and is still going strong at 42 years old with an acting career/voice overs.
Before YouTube, getting hold of his videos and concert DVDs were almost impossible. I found them floating around YouTube recently and this beautiful man never fails to amaze me with his soulful vocals and multi talented stunts.
I took a one month vacation and gained new perspectives on how to go about in my future endeavours as a professional artist (defined as: one who works full time at her craft). I have a schedule which I tabulate the number of hours I spend a week on my artistry, which amounts to about forty hours a week. It’s a full time job almost – just that I do not have a boss or fixed pay check at the end of the moment. I do not have much financial rewards. However, there is a secondary kind of reward – fan mail from fans, recognition, and overall satisfaction of life, which I had been receiving since I resumed filming and writing.
I am on the final stretch of revising and checking for the final edits on my novel, the Red Hourglass. It’s like almost a devotion to a religious manuscript at this point. I have to remember, and find out what is working and what is not working. I had identified some small weaknesses, but overall I feel quite happy at the end product at the moment. It’s only one month left till publication and the amount of edits I can do is limited at this point.
The difference right now between the original first draft to this final draft is that I feel an adrenaline rush reading it. It’s like being in a race almost. It has a thriller like quality to it. It’s like a movie on fast speed. I had NEVER imagined my novel to be this, from where I started – it has exceeded my expectations. There is a saying “write what you do not know” to stretch your imagination. If you are in New York, write about what if you were living in Los Angeles. Precisely because of that, I think I had been driving my imagination crazy about writing in a context of a place I am not situated at.
One of my beta readers feedback is that the final draft is like “being on an adrenaline rush without coffee.” I had admittedly, probably consumed about a thousand cups of coffee to write the Red Hourglass. Maybe it’s the the sum of my mental hardcore process of condensing many things in a few words. When I read it now, I recall several memories here and there – when I wrote it, sometimes about my own life, sometimes what I watched or replayed to study (character studies), etc. It’s like reading what I did four years of my life in one book.
There are many people who dream out there to write their own novel, having almost finished my first novel, I have this to say – just do it. Just sit down and write. No one is going to push you to do it. Just do it because YOU want to do it. The process is fun, and the end product is satisfying. I would attribute the completion of my novel is the major milestone in my life. It’s not even about my graduation day that was my milestone – it is this. This is the ONLY thing I did for myself in my life. I graduated from university because I was EXPECTED to graduate. There is a difference in that.
As I go about two more weeks of final changes, I have to say I am very excited for the launch of the Red Hourglass on 30th October 2015. The day before Halloween 🙂
Deprivation of love, is like deprivation of oxygen.
I think I had gone too long without breathing with love. My words had dried up as emotions were sucked out of them. As it is with writing, writing is controlled by emotional states. When one’s emotional state is numbed, the words do not flow. Like a dried tap, my words were devoid of any emotions for a long time. They were almost academic, almost still. They did not jump off page, they are just static. Why does my writings feel so lifeless? I ask myself sometimes. It took me some time to realise that I had been deprived of love since I was a child. The deprivation of love is the most painful emotion in the world that one can ever experience. Love came to me in twisted forms, and mangled shapes. It appeared to me like a curse, or a burden. Love was in the form of punishments and obedience. Love was conditional, and it was expected for love to occur, I have to do something in return. I have to keep quiet, do my home work, remain invisible.
Love was not present in my life, love was deprived of my life.
The lack of love, is the fundamental reason why I am unable to see myself in the mirror.
To accept myself for who I am, to believe in myself.
For years I had been told to be someone else.
Only recently I gained a breakthrough in my mindset in regards to this; that I am deserving of love.
I no longer want to deprive myself of the love that I deserve, and that I need.
I want to feel my fans worship me, instead of brushing it off.
I want to feel loved and adored.
I want love, and I want love to dissolve all my pain.
I had started to believe in love, and in hope once again.
Not for others but for myself.
I will mend the pieces of my broken life
And welcome love into my life again.
I never thought I would have the courage to do this, but I had decided I am deserving and I will move on from this point.
There is a loneliness in pursuing a life of an artist. There is a constant internal battle. There are conflicts. There are voices in my head. Everyday I fight within myself to produce my creations. Sometimes I fail, sometimes I succeed. Sometimes I hit or miss. It depends.
I think most artists go through this aspect of fighting against the currents to produce art. Some artists fall into addictions like drugs or drinking. Some artists pursue the muse. For me, it’s just hardcore discipline of the mind. I try to still my mind and set a schedule and no matter what, I have to meet my self imposed deadlines.
I treat it as a profession, although I have no boss to report to, I am the director of my life. I operate as such and if my performance falls short of my standards I am not afraid to press the delete button. I have my own internal compass in what I think is passable.
I am an only child and I work best alone. This solitary life of an artist suits my personality. But I do not believe this path is for everyone. In fact, most people would give up halfway in the journey. I had wanted to give up and run away from this calling. Every time I diverged from my path I end up back here. It’s a strange sensation.
I had learnt over time to go with the flow and not fight again the currents. I go where the currents takes me. But I change my floating path if I know I am about to hit the rocks.
I know I am about the hit the rocks recently, and I had decided to change my pathway. I feel much better knowing I had formulated a contingency plan to save my sanity before it becomes disrupted.
My work has been affected over the past few weeks but held myself up and forced myself to meet my deadlines. And by doing that I realized how much battles I had been facing on so much fronts and I have to withdraw from unnecessary battles to refocus on key ones.
I found my hope in the last moments of my despair. I realized that no knights will rescue me. All I have to do is believe in hope again, and my knights will appear from around the world to serve my wishes, along with the countless of thousands of minions out there.
These are my internal revelations as an artist and I believe I am destined for more to come and my journey has only barely started and I am not about to end my true path to becoming who I am, without any external influences on my life. As a result of which I had decided I will go solo on this journey without any reliance on any organization.
I will be the director of my productions and my life. Everyone else reports to me. That’s all it is. And this is what it means to be an artist to me – to be the director of your life.
As of this year April, I decided to pursue my artistry on a full time basis. There are doubts and fears, I was afraid. I was letting go of the old life I had before. But there was always something lacking in my life that I was running from. And I knew I wasn’t cut out for one fixed role. As I don’t feel comfortable working in just one medium for prolonged periods of time, I had to diversify my art forms. I decided to do these three things: write, act and dance.
As what Steven Pressfield said, you can divide your life into two once you turn pro – life before turning pro, and life after turning pro. I truly agree. Before I turned professional in my artistry, I was living a shadow life. A life of a shadow drama. I was running away from my true calling, from my drive to create. I was focused on the numbers, climbing the career ladder, doing businesses that brought me materialistic objects but no comfort to my soul. If you ask me, I regret running from my artistry for so long. I was hiding from it. I was denying it. I was trying to be a part time pro. But there is no such thing. It is a decision – to be professional or not to be professional. There is no in-between.
In my quest to turn pro, I sought for mentors. I read thecreativepenn.com and followed her books like a religion. I revised Robert Greene books. I read everything I could to ready myself for the climb ahead. I am in it for the long haul. I gave myself a time line of five years to make it or break it. If I do not make it by the end of five years, I will go back to my career, save up, and try again.
After equipping myself sufficiently with knowledge and putting security back up plans measures in place, I started my life of turning pro:
Firstly, I decided to get my full fledge website http://thescarletqueen.com up and running. I had for years, imagined about this website which was not in existence. With the will of my imagination, I brought it forth to the world. That website will contain my finished artistry. This blog will be the documentation of the process (behind the scenes). I needed to maintain this blog at averral.com to still my mind and detach from my creations.
Secondly, I started my patreon account. Patreon allows fans to become patrons of the artist. For it to work, monthly rewards have to be given out. I decided to do more for the rewards, I will record an addition of: a video, an audio and release my draft writings for my fans to see before their publication. So far, it’s working out well. I am glad that now technology allows artists to connect with fans instantly.
Thirdly, I sent myself for counseling, dancing and acting classes. Most professional actors consult a counselor to bring out their best performances. I signed up for three dance performance teams. When my character Risque started to control my life, as I was unable to snap out of character; I consulted an acting coach. He said my character outgrew my personality. I have to develop my own personality and balance out my character Risque. What is unique to your own personality that Risque doesn’t have? He asked. After a week or so, I succeeded in finding the differentiation factor between myself and Risque, and it’s truly humorous. All I have to do after filming Risque or Cheryl right now is to watch comedy. I just had to laugh and be happy to cheer myself up. My default mood is cheerful. That’s how I get back to my own personality after an intense performance.
Fourthly, I found an editor and writing buddy. We work and send each other our drafts and communicate via email almost daily. It’s like going to work, instead of emailing clients or colleagues, I am communicating with my editor and buddy on my work in progress and my mental state. Mental state is crucial in writing the best pieces. I entered myself for the national poetry and short story competition (which I both lost). I was never good at winning competitions anyway.
I resumed rewriting the Red Hourglass, which I had been writing on and off over four years. But this time, I was determined to complete it for year end publication. I set the publication date as 30th October. With a deadline, there is no excuse. As writing a novel day to night for about ten hours a day can be extremely boring, I started writing something else fun on the side – Butterfly, which has a more erotic twist to it. It’s my entertainment. I find it easy to write that, compared to the large task of writing a novel. I would write Butterfly during my breaks. I decided to turn it into a little novella as I see potential in this work.
Lastly, I set a schedule of what I have to produce by the end of every month. My current schedule goes like this:
1. Four YouTube videos a month
2. One Private Patreon video
3. One Private Patreon Risque audio
4. Releasing of Butterfly drafts for Patreon
5. Writing/editing Red Hourglass about 2 – 8 hours a day, 5 days a week
6. Dance classes about three times a week
7. Counselor / Acting Coach when needed
I spend my remaining time replying to fan mails, watching videos of dance performances, and thinking what to film, write or create for my future books/videos.
…
Since turning pro, I wake up before my alarm. My life is restored of it’s meaning. I no longer procrastinate or fear of becoming who I really am. I learnt over time to accept I have kinky desires that are unmet. I am not afraid to speak up and act upon my convictions. I stand by my artistic creations and take responsibility for them. I no longer care about what the people around me think about my creations, they are a separate entity from me. I am who I am, my creations are just creations. I wake up daily, thinking about the truth love and beauty I am restoring to this world, and that I am a vessel who has dedicated her life to the pursuit of art.
My life after turning pro is beautiful, it’s sublime.
The sacrifice ?
I know my old life has to go. I let go of my business and my staff. I reduced my expenditure and leisure time. I put more time into my work compared to before. I no longer seek for distractions like playing games or facebooking. Old people in my life disappeared as new ones appeared. New friends and fans who help me to achieve my artistic goals.
If given the choice, I would have turned pro earlier.
I highly recommend Steven Pressfield book, Turning Pro.
