I Have Nothing Else To Do

Before I start off, I want to thank you, my fellow creatives for taking time to read this incomplete post. I ask for your forgiveness and patience if you pick up any incoherent of my writing. I’m not my usual self lately and I’m still trying to figure out what’s going on! This post is part of my search.


I have wanted to write about a particular workshop experience for a long while. But I was fearful that I would either turn myself into an idiot or appear to be an arrogant bastard. However, from the various degrees of frustration and puzzlement I picked up from a few of our fellow creatives, I began thinking deeply about my writing and this one particular workshop experience.

About two years ago, I enrolled in a one-day writing class called "Finding Your Voice". (Not singing, but writing voice! And thank god you never hear me sing …) The tutor and participants were all passionate about writing and were generous to offer each other critique and support. I had learnt a lot from them and gained confidence in my writing. (I’m sure you can tell there’s a “but” coming …)

But there was one “reaction” from both the tutor and participants which left me with bewilderment. As usual in a lot of writing workshops, participants are invited to talk about the reasons why they write. It was no different with this one. I gave the usual plus one specific reason: Because I Have Nothing Else To Do. As soon as I made this statement, the entire class laughed. I was taken aback and felt like an idiot. I was pretty sure they must have thought that I was making a joke. I can’t remember exactly what happened afterward. Probably I babbled a bit and let the thing trailed off.

Lately, though I’m experiencing tremendous frustration of maintaining my creativity, I still hang onto my story writing for exactly the same reason. Let me say it again: Because I Have Nothing Else To Do. I’m not sure how you’ll take this … hopefully you don’t laugh. But I also don’t want you to have the wrong idea that I’m showing off my determination to be a writer and hence undermining your effort in pursuing your art. I’m simply stating a fact of my life.

Now for this “nothing else”, it could be viewed in two ways:

1. Our duties / responsibilities / obligations to our day job, families & friends.

2. All sorts of activities which we do for fun / relaxation / filling up our spare time.

And when I say I don’t have anything else to do, I'm not only talking about the responsibilities and activities. I'm referring to what I want to do with my life at this stage.

You might think that by identifying the above, my frustration should cease. Oh, no! Far from it. I’m actually thinking it might be part of the problem. As I’m still pondering and planning a separate post on it, I’ll stop here and ask my fellow creatives a few questions.

- If time and money is not an issue (OR) if you have unlimited time and money, would you still write / draw / sew / knit / create? Why?

- Is there anything else you want to do with your life other than your current art form? Why?

You’re all welcomed to respond to these questions as comments in this blog (OR) you could write a post as respond in your blog. If you choose the latter, I would appreciate if you could let me know so that I could hop over and read about it.

Til then … have a great day!