Throughout my childhood people kept going on and on about me being talented and that I should go to art school because I was good at drawing comic books. They thought my talent was in visual arts and that that’s why I kept drawing those comics. The reality was that much more than by the artwork of the characters, I was drawn by the creation of stories. Art was just something I had to do in order to make stories.

Unfortunately I didn’t realize this at the time, so I went on trying to be good at other things like computer technology. I was a fairly smart kid and could get by without really straining myself all the way up to high school. But while I excelled in primary/middle school I was a complete academic disaster in high school. I flunked most of my classes repeatedly, couldn’t care less about art, didn’t really read much, and was as much of a poster-kid ‘rebel without a cause’ as one could be without throwing up from cliché poisoning.

After high school I had to face the facts and get serious. My creative spirit was obviously not going to get me anywhere, so, after a failed attempt at college, I started working. After starting off as a naive idealist things went downwards very quickly. I noticed a change in me. No longer was I full of life and brimming with ideas, but rather a disgruntled man filled with resentment toward life that wasn’t exactly what I imagined it to be.

After a while I even started fantasizing about making more money. I got into a couple of education programs that could teach me the skills I needed in order to excel in my field. I reckoned the more I know the higher I’ll get paid. I failed to read the fine print in those contracts though and got stuck in a high payment plan that could never really get me anywhere, even if I did manage to get a more lucrative position.

So here I was, one year from today, no real creative spark in me left, stuck at a job I hated, and without a clue as to what I was so fucking special at. All those sweet ideas people kept pounding into my head when I was little made no sense any longer. I had no idea what I wanted to do with myself. I knew I could do a lot of things really well, if I stuck with them, but none really appealed to me in the long run.

Then one day, while I was on a business trip out of town, I went out for a drink with a fresh acquaintance. It was nobody special, just some woman I wanted to fuck. After a couple of drinks she finally asked me, what I did, and since I knew we were never going to meet again, I said I was a writer. I don’t even know why I said it at the time. It’s not as if I played with the idea at all previously. It was just a fun lie I came up with on the spot, nothing more. Or so it would seem.

The lie, seemingly so innocent and ludicrous, slowly turned into an idea and  somehow managed to lodge itself inside my cranium, corroding the foundations of the steel beams that supported my beaten down mentality.

You need to understand that I was raised in a home where we didn’t really believe in achieving financial stability through artistic expression. If you wanted to succeed in life, it sure as hell wasn’t going to be through ‘expressing yourself’. You needed a job! Some nine-to-five regime (seven-to-three where I come from) that could provide you with a way to pay those checks every month.

As a result I never really took anyone seriously when they told me I could have a creative career. Sure, I loved writing. I always did. But I never thought about doing it for a living… Until that night when I said I was a writer.

That innocent lie would, for the first time in my life, create a sensation of possibility and feasibility! Buds of realization started sprouting inside my skull; greenish what-ifs and why-nots replacing all those rusty beams supporting my tumorous left-brained fears for security, stability and sustainability.

Finally, after a decade of self-denial, I gave myself some much needed approval. I started by admitting that I am NOT a writer… yet! But it did become all I could think about so I finally conceded. I vowed to myself that I would never stop trying to become one. The first step was obviously to start writing, which I hadn’t done fore a fair number of years. So I opened up my computer and started pouring down a flood of word-packed manure onto the blank page.

It was complete and utter garbage. Writing of the worst kind! So childish, mundane and clunky that it would give Mr. Brown some well deserved competition among the top of the flop. And all I could think about was how fucking great it was and how much money I was going to make selling books - delusion was always my strong suit.

I had a long road ahead of me, filled with realizations, the first among many being that I had to start reading again if I was ever to become anything more than a dry and witless typist. After reading some of the widely acclaimed contemporary works, I decided to delve into the hardcore classics. I made a painful mistake of reading some Shakespeare. I say painful because after reading The Bard I could never again look at life in the same naive way. I realized how low my skill levels were and how high I needed to ascend in order to be able to share a job description with this genius.

For the first time in my life I knew without a shred of doubt what I wanted to do in life and was absolutely convinced I would be doing it for the rest of my life. I wanted to study English Literature and Creative Writing.

So, again, here we are now, almost a year later. I’m waiting for replies from different universities in England, where I applied for the English Literature & Creative Writing course. I notified my company about leaving in the autumn, made plans about selling my car and told everybody I was going.

But even though I was convinced of going and finding a way to do it, there was still one big problem. I was and still am under the payment plan for those courses I took for my job, owing the learning centre more than 4.000 euro. If am certain of dealing with this debt in any way I can, but I would rather do it before going to college (which in itself is going to cost me a fortune), since I won’t have any steady income while in England, other than weekend jobs, which sure as hell won’t be able to pay for life in Britain along with those 200 euro/month payments I’m bound to make for two more years. The sad thing about this debt is that it was one of the things that pushed me towards realizing what I want to do in life, so in a weird way it was worth it. Even though I’m totally broke because of it.

I’ve been raising money any way I can. I’m working as a freelancer on the web, doing random small jobs on the side and helping out relatives for petty cash. I also quit coffee and almost completely froze my social life (as much as one could without going crazy) in order to save a couple of bucks.

It’s still not going to be enough though, so against every fibre of my being, I decided to start a donation pool through PayPal. I don’t know how much I’ll raise this way, but I thought it’s worth a shot. 

You can find the ‘Donate’ button on top of my tumblr page. Here’s the link in case you’re not reading this on tumblr: http://myblankinfinity.tumblr.com

The next step is playing for money in the streets… and if you think I won’t do it, you’re wrong!

Thanks for your support!