my complicated relationship with creative pursuits.

Recently on twitter, I was asked to share some facts about myself and I took the chance to finally lay out how I feel towards my two often conflicting passions of writing and art. It was good for me to recount and sort through this complicated history and see it all succinctly explained in within 140 character limits, so I thought I'd post it here too.

1. i have always been equally passionate about both writing and art, however my focus seems to swap between the two at any given moment.
2. for most of my life, my dream was to be a writer. throughout my entire primary/high school/early uni life i did nothing but write.
3. i wrote original fiction, series, short stories and novels. i entered competitions, got shortlisted, got published, got rejected.
4. i submitted CVs and proposals and manuscripts. there's an agency out there who took my full manuscript and never got back to me >:(
5. i also used to be a very prolific fanfiction writer. i often wrote for a certain crackship in a certain popular anime ww
6. because i focused so much on writing during this time, i almost stopped drawing entirely and neglected my art.
7. i still regret this when i think of how much i could've improved and where i'd be at now if i hadn't stopped drawing back then.
8. nowadays, my focus has shifted into art. for now, i am thinking in images rather than words but for now, this is where i want to be.
9. however, i am still carrying my stories and characters with me until the day i can express them and share them in whatever way i want :)
10. in the end i think i am just addicted to creating. i love storytelling, whether it's by words or by pictures, i need to make something.
11. this is probably why ideally, i'd love to be a mangaka/comic artist, to somehow finally coordinate my two relentless passions together.

It seems that I've really had a long complicated journey chasing my passions and it will probably continue in this way into the future. I don't know, it's still hard to analyze myself and how I feel and what I'm like as a person. What do I really like to do, what do I prefer, what am I most compelled to do, what can't I give up. The only thing I know for sure is that as complex as my relationship with writing and art is, I can't give them up, or rather, they won't give me up. I'll probably keep writing and drawing and telling stories and battling this conflicting relationship to the very end. 

(It also seems that I really do like writing things in lists. Short and to the point twitter has been good for someone like me who doesn't particularly enjoy writing proper blog posts.)