Reflections of 2024

“…the act of sorrowful rumination over the relatively recent past, makes my world a bitter but also an enlivening place, as my latent creativity appeared prominently on the vast, promising horizon, enchanted by this burning heartache.”

As 2025 is just around the corner, I can’t help thinking about all of the blessings I have encountered in my path this past year and about the lessons I learnt through several setbacks and challenges. I am not going to detail every single achievements and milestones of my goals here, will solely be concentrating on the creative aspects of the year below.

The quote I started this reflection with is from a poem of mine I have written a few weeks ago, so it is relatively fresh. The reason why I have chosen this piece of writing in the beginning of this blog post is because it has a powerful message that I feel strongly about: even the most challenging situation can have a silver lining and may function as a catalyst for further personal development. Sometimes, it is extremely difficult to see clear benefits of a harsh life experience, but if we keep an open mind, if we let ourselves to freely reflect back on an event from a healthy distance, we can discover tremendous positives in the situation and some may even become a blessing in disguise.

This is the year’s biggest lesson I learnt through a personal experience involving letting someone go who was part of my life for more than a decade: the process was quite difficult but it fuelled my creativity to the highest possible level I have ever functioned at. This inspired me to take a leap of faith and experiment with the English language first time in my life as a foreigner with writing poems about the process of letting my past go. This practice has resulted in several great writings that allowed me to apply to prestiges poetry competitions this year. I have also bought the domain for outsidethebud, and started writing regularly again here which makes me very hopeful again of my creative future.

And what I am going to bring with myself to 2025? I am currently working with a designer on a short poetry booklet design for the poems I have written this year out of the process of letting my past go. I am keen to maintain this creative practice in the upcoming year with actively working on new writings and continuing the applications to poetry competitions. 

How to be a creative writer

If you have the desire to play with words and create precious written worlds with your imaginative mind, this post is definitely for you.

Everybody has a story to tell and I firmly believe that we are all able to facilitate the creative artists within ourselves. I would like to share some basic tips that can help you unlock your full potential in terms of creative writing.

1. Read, read, read…

Reading different type of books and blogs that are closely related to your interests are beneficial in the path towards creativity. In addition, exploring the secret tips from professional writers are an indispensable part of this process.

As far as I am concerned, I used to ignore other authors’ writings in my native language because I always felt that I unintentionally lose my own voice and I was desperately trying to maintain my own style and create a distinctive emotional brand.

But the book about Creativity written by a Hungarian professor, Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, emphasizes the fact that your first step towards creativity is to learn the basics in an effective way then spice it up with your own, genuine ideas in order to create something innovative. Most importantly, reading professional writings helps to learn more complicated sentence structures that could be a beneficial practice and helps to be seen more professional.

2. Be inspired…

In order to be creative in our writing endeavours, we need constant inspiration. Everybody is different in terms of needs, but it is our individual interest to discover what really makes our creative juices flowing. Whether it is an interesting book, a professional conference, an art exhibition or just simply a long walk in the forest, it is of paramount importance to be aware of what activities are able to facilitate the creative activity of our subconscious mind. Exposing ourselves to these inspiring activities regularly will help to find and open the doors of our hidden creativity.

3. Have a notebook with you at all times…

As strange as it may sound but my most creative writings were made on trains and buses. The first time when I saw the word ‘Symbiosis’ in an advert from a bus it immediately made me wondered. Unfortunately I didn’t have any paper or journal with me so I had to write my ideas into my phone. Since then I always carry a notebook with myself and pay close attention to my muse whenever she wants to tell me something.

On the other hand, a beautiful journal can help you to feel creative whenever you take a quick look at it. I am really obsessed by colourful and artistic journals so I usually buy new ones.

Lavinia Spalding, the author of Writing Away advises to have a blank journal in order to not feel limited between the lines. It helps you to make drawings and create your own creative world without being restricted.

4. Practice…

In order to find your own voice and distinctive style, you have to stretch yourself and jump out your familiar boundaries. It basically means that you have to try a lot of things so that you can distinguish what is really you. Writing prompts are a good way to practice your skills and explore different styles until you find out your own unique voice.

5. Don’t be afraid of the blank page syndrome…

Chances are that infertile days, weeks, months or years occur without chronicling anything meaningful to the outside, however, it does not mean that there aren’t any ongoing war in the wild woods of the writer’s soul. So my core theory is that a writer’s mind is never empty, it is always observing and analyzing something, it is unstoppable. And the silent periods are indeed an inseparable part of any creative achievement where the purpose of the time is to ripen any meaningful realizations into something innovative.