Ramble:

I’m not sure if I’ll ever get tattoos, but if I do, I know what my first would be: a hare, on my left arm. Besides hares looking like elegant, elongated, half-mad rabbits, which is really cool, they’re often connected in literature and symbolism to dreams. As such, the tattoo would be a sort of promise to myself not to forget my dream of being a writer. Which might sound incredibly cheesy, but it’s something very important to me — especially because it’s a promise I’m scared of not being able to keep. I have my whole life stretching ahead of me, which is wonderful and exciting, but also terrifying. There’s a path set out for everyone, and it’s a path I can’t imagine walking and being happy.

What scares me the most about this is that I know it’s almost universal amongst young people, and yet those same young people so often grow into the life they had rejected. I don’t say this with judgment — people change, and that’s both natural and inevitable. But without my writing, I wouldn’t be fulfilled. And creativity is something that’s inherently antithetical to the structure of the world. Creative endeavours take a long time to make, they’re not reliably profitable, they require much more than the physical reward they produce.

But beyond my fear of losing my creativity, its counter-ness is a huge source of hope to me. Every creative piece is a little act of rebellion. I can’t reinvent how the world works, I can fight against it in my personal life, and give myself something more. My priority doesn’t have to be on making money. Even though I can’t *not* work for money, I can separate my core from that.

I’m far from psychic — I can’t predict what I’m going to end up. But I am sure that I’ll always want to write. I think I’m in the same boat as a lot of people worrying about losing this part of myself. But honestly, I don’t believe that creativity is something that can ever be completely subdued. Not when it feels so hopeful.

Progress:

- I’ve completed a zine made for a friend. The physical version is posted on my Instagram (@scrapsofworlds), and I’m working on a digital version that’ll be put up on here.

Writer’s desk:

Not a genre this time, but a form. Zines are small-scale independent publications that tend to contain both art and writing — either the author’s own or spliced from other sources. Since their creation, they’ve been used by marginalised groups to promote activism and find a voice when traditional forms of written media was, and still is, barred to them. They have an important part in activism, but they are also used to share news on events, give reviews, create stories and anything else you can do with a pen and a brain. As they’re characterised by being independent (anything being marketed as a zine by large publishers or companies is just a short comic) individual zines can never enter the zeitgeist at large, but they can become touchstones of smaller communities, especially when they are often the only source of news on niche topic. Also, they’re not constrained by the budget streamlining of traditionally published media — many are printed using means through which the price is barely changed, no matter how much colour or ink is required. As such, there’s some incredibly innovative formatting and ways to present zines.

I’m only just beginning to make my own zines, but it’s been an incredibly interesting and rewarding experience. As mentioned above, I’ll be digitising one to put on here too.

Media highlight:

Can perfume be considered media? Probably not, but I’m going to bend the rules here to talk about Until Death by Society of Alchemists. When I got it, I was surprised by how pretty it smells. Given the name, I expected it to smell dark, but it’s actually quite unobtrusive. That’s not to say it’s boring, though. The powedery vanilla and floral notes aren’t normally what I go for, but balanced with musk and patchouli makes something unusual and very appealing. It’s also relatively cheap for small-brand perfume, which never hurts. It’s a beautiful scent that is suitable for everyday settings but really shines in closer-knit settings, where its unusual notes are more apparent.