in the memory of my old blog from like 2020

that doesn't exist anymore because the blog.cz platform domain got bought by TV Nova, fuck you

Hello, welcome to the first edition of Ni!.
A place where I'll dump (nearly) all of my monthly interests in hope of it giving someone even a tiny spark of inspiration.
The idea of starting this "magazine" came to me during one particular evening in the beginning of august while staying over at my babka's place. Sweating heavily in places on my body I didn't know existed, I was breathing in the thick hot air blowing in through the balcony door on the second floor.
I was journalling.
While jotting down some ideas, as I usually do, an idea struck me like lightening.
Suddenly, it was there.
I will make an internet magazine.
"God?" I asked, turning my head to the ceiling, as an idea as bright and important as this one surely must have arrived from a place of higher frequencies.

I scribbled down the vision in my head and begun working on it later that week.

As those who know already know, I love to challenge myself when it comes to ideas like this.
I like to try this and that, and then I either drag it out to the very end, or just let it burn like a dumpster fire, deleting everything in a fit of not being satisfied with the outcome, or just simply putting too much on my plate at the wrong time.
This time, I decided to incorporate this idea into a kind of a personal project.
In the last couple of months, I have been working on, well, enjoying being bad at things (haters will say that that's basically all my life.)
(I am haters.).
And doing them simply for the joy of learning.
I realised I treated a lot of my hobbies like a constant performance (mainly the ones I am sharing with others), and I held everything I was making to some kind of a weird "good enough" labeled standard.

Sure, the internet is far from what it was when personal websites and blogs like these were still popular, as it now feels like a hellhole full of very angry chihuahuas that are eagerly waiting for someone to make a bad or slightly cringe move, so they can rip them to shreds and yap about how much better they are than them...

...but I have to admit, that even when it comes to things I do just for fun, the form of judgement that holds me back the most is my own.
I do believe that it is important to do something bad at first for it to be good later.
Better yet, sometimes it's just fun to be bad at things.
The inner critic doesn't really know what you're doing, so he shuts up.
And you're free to play and explore.

And, as I finally get to the point -
this is a part of the forementioned personal project.
In short, I will make one magazine page like this a month.
I wish to learn along the way, to hopefully inspire someone bored enough that they read this to try something they've wanted to try for the longest time as well, to play, to explore whenever they can.
Or just to listen to some good music, visit some cool places and try some nice, interesting or just plain questionable recipes.

12 year old blogger Petra, this is for you.
And for anyone who needs to read something while on the toilet.

Lesgo!

I first got into Mac's music during a...less fortunate time in my life. I was 18, constantly moving from place to place, hoping to win an audition to one of the local orchestras and finally be able to be fully independent. I didn't make it, and I got stuck in a situation I only knew how to mentally escape by drinking. I remember going home from school in winter, looking like a damn Christmas tree with all the bags I used to carry with me, standing by the door in a fully packed bus, and listening to the songs on Another One and This Old Dog.
I didn't really care what the songs were about, the music just felt like a hug. The warm synths, guitars with intense reverb, Mac's mellow vocals and the overall calm upbeat nature of most of the songs were something that somehow seemed to positively affect my luxurious mental state.
His music has stuck with me since.
While I like music that is overall more energetic and edgy, DeMarco's songs have never failed to put my mind at ease, so I was excited to find out that he's releasing an album again this year. The album came out august 22nd, until then, two songs also featured on the album came out as singles - Holy and Home. I instantly liked Holy, being very on brand with its calm character, short, simple, but nicely put together lyrics and tiny playful guitar breaks in between the verses. The slow rythm rocks you back and forth like a hammock in the garden, although the chord structure of the song gives it a slightly mysterious atmosphere, which I really like. I didn't think much of Home at the very first listen, but after a while of it randomly coming up in my playlist, it really grew on me. I started paying attention to the lyrics, and found out I could relate to them, to an extent. Home is also very melodically interesting.

One rainy morning, a few days after the album's release, I took some time to listen to it. A few numbers stuck with me.
The album has an overall chill vibe, as that is, as stated before, Mac's trademark sound. It all sounds very homey, almost like a demo. I must say that all of the songs sound pretty similar to one another. Most of them, along with Shining - which is the opener, start abruptly, without any kind of intro or buildup, which I think is a bit of a shame, but definitely not something that's new with Mac. Opening an album with a half-broken high vocal is...certainly a choice, but I can't say I don't like Shining. I think it, again, has a very interesting melody, and I personally like Mac's higher vocal register colors, I don't at all mind him not being an amazing singer.
I don't think his intention with his music is for it to sound perfect. To me, his songs feel almost like diary entries, personal, straight to the point, without any kind of extra polishing and frills. Human.
Another one (no pun intended lol) that stuck with me is the closing song Rooster. Interesting chorus (?) consisting only of la-la-la's, with some sweet vocal harmonies that only appear for a moment. The, again, hammock-y, rocky guitar picking is very nice as well, almost meditative.

I won't rate it, I'm not Fantano. I'll just say, if you haven't already, give Mac's music a listen. I'd recommend Another one, Salad Days, This old dog or Here comes the Cowboy more than Guitar. Even One Wayne G is a very fun (albeit a bit long) listen. The man has ideas upon ideas, and as much as I really enjoy the songs I mentioned, I don't think this one is up there with the other ones.
It really does sound like a collection of unfinished demos to me for the most part.

As a part of this section about music, I decided to include a portion just about song lyrics, as I have been reading those lately without even listening to the music. I don't really know why I started doing that, but thanks to this practice, I begun to deeply appriciate the creativity and intimacy with which some artists approach their work. Better yet, sometimes with humor and unapologetic freedom as well.
I have to admit that, for a long time in my life, I have been listening to (not just instrumental) music mostly for the music, for the interesting sounds and feelings that certain songs would evoke in me, without really paying too much attention to the lyrics.
I was about fifteen years old when I first took interest in any song lyrics, as I discovered the album Modrý Vrch (Blue Hill) by Dežo Ursiny, a slovak composer and musician (one of my favourites). Seemingly simple texts written by the poet Ivan Štrpka moved me as much as the beautiful music, the album has a special place in my heart to this day. It was then that I started reading Štrpka's lyrics, and his other poems that haven't been set to music, just to read them. The poems are written using the free verse technique - it doesn't rhyme, and I love the interesting rythms that free-versed poetry offers. It flows like a natural element, free of any kind of rules and regulations.

During this summer, I returned to this lyric reading habit, and I started transcribing the ones I liked the best in my notebook.
Same as DeMarco's simple, honest verses resonated with me again after some time, I started re-listening (and reading) the work of musicians I've listened to for a very long time now.
One of them is John Frusciante whose (incredibly versatile) solo work I definitely recommend to those, who know him only as a (phenomenal) guitarist. My favourite Frusciante lyrics can be found mainly on the albums Inside of Emptiness, specifically the songs I'm around and Look on.

Paired with the unusually beautiful melodies he writes and the emotion with which he sings, this is easily my favourite on the album. It is not really clarified what the song is about, as Frusciante himself just stated that I'm around, 666 and Emptiness - three songs on the album were written while he was reading the biography of Aleister Crowley, possibly hinting at some personal situations in his life or hidden meanings of occult themes. I must admit, I was pretty far off when I was first guessing what the song was about. I thought it might be about a couple who has been through thick and thin, sticking together through very hard situations ("We'll never scale those hights again - we lost our daughter), and somehow still keep going together.
Maybe something like that happened to Crowley at one point. I haven't read his biography, although I do own a hardback copy of the Holy Books.

I haven't had much luck finding out what Look on is about either, but I'm guessing (might be wrong again) that John is simply reflecting on his younger years in this one, specifically on the period in his life during which he heavily used heroin, and how much he has changed since then.
The song offers some beautiful harmonies inbetween each sentence in the first part of this particular verse...

As a honorable mention, I'll introduce you (if you don't know him) to Dick Valentine.
Tyler Spencer, going by the stage name Dick Valentine, is the frontman of Electric Six, one of my absolutely favourite mostly-unserious-but-really-fucking-good bands that I listen to. He apparently has quite the catalogue of solo work as well, which I never really cared for enough to explore, but I might soon, since I love the way he writes.
Dick Valentine's lyrics read like fucking tabloid magazine titles. They are scandalous, deadpan, blunt, and a lot of times just plain funny.
My favourite songs from E6 are on the albums Fire and Senor Smoke, which to me are simply their best records, but there's a lot to find on
I Shall Exterminate Everything Around Me That Restricts Me from Being the Master (yes, that is an actual album title), Bride of the Devil, Switzerland and Heartbeats and Brainwaves, which are some of the others I used to listen to quite a lot.
Specifically from Fire, I can include a tiny bit of Naked Pictures (of your Mother), which is a great example of the style of many E6 lyrics. Shock-value, overexagguration, and a pinch of social commentary (I recommend to listen to this one yourself, I included only the beginning verse-chorus so that this site doesn't immediately get taken down lol)...

...on a more lighthearted note, it could be Bite me! from Senor Smoke...I'll let you figure this one out on your own...

...and finally, from Switzerland, it would be two specific lines from Infected Girls that struck me as unusually poetic for a song about STDs.
First would be the opening line "I rode a sex wave and washed up on your shore" (chef's kiss), and then the end of a verse "Now I'm just a statue in the garden where your evil flowers grow."
No need to thank me.

I did not read much this summer, but I finished two books, and started a third one.
None of them was exactly Hemingway or Camus, but I haven't been in the mood for strongly intellectual literature lately anyway.
I like a book that I can rest between the pages of, maybe have a laugh, learn something new or interesting, or just simply explore someone else's different view on certain topics. In this section, I will be focusing on a book that I recently enjoyed...

Note: This section is different in the Slovak version of this page, as that one includes one more book. It is a Slovak book that's not been translated to english, so I feel like there would be no use of writing about it for English speaking readers. Therefore, I am including only one of the two.

The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron

I discovered this book by coincidence, in a random comment section on an instagram video that I don't even remember anymore.
Someone summarized the book's premise in a comment, stating that they're reading it for the second time now. I googled it, and found out that it was clearly some kind of a self help book.
I am kind of avoiding those like the plague when I can. There's way too many of them for the people who can afford them to still be miserable somehow.
But as it always is, I was intrigued by something simply because it had to do with art, so I decided to peep it.

The Artist's Way is definitely not for everybody, as it is quite strongly spiritually charged, and the topic of faith (not necessarily the Christian type of faith) is very much present throughout the whole book. I can easily imagine some people I know rolling their eyes all the way back into their skulls as soon as anything like that is mentioned in connection to the artistic process.
So I'll say right away, if you don't have the nerves for these topics, at least a slightly open mind when it comes to spirituality or any desire to explore in this area, don't bother with this book. It would most likely just piss you off.

This book is targeted at blocked artists.
At people who used to be creative, but life happened, and they ended up abandoning whatever artistic pursuits, hobbies or dreams they used to enjoy. At people who want to be creative but can't, because they feel like it's childish, or that it's too late for them to explore a new passion.
It offers a 12 week "course" (that Cameron apparently used to teach in person), during the time of which the reader confronts their feelings, their childhood, their fears, their dreams and the possible neglect of investing time and resources into things that they actually want to do, simply because they make them happy.
Every week in the book begins with an essay disassembling a particular problem that the reader must confront in the process of their artistic recovery. After that, a set of tasks is assigned to the reader to commit to during the following week, along with questions to think about and work with.
Working with affirmations is also present, and there are two things to be done separately every day and every week - the morning pages, and an artist date.

I have to admit, that even though I was pretty skeptical about the whole thing in the start, this book introduced me to a lot of very useful concepts. A lot of topics forced me to confront and work with my personal fears, angers and insecurities present in my life, that, as I realised, were really blocking my access to the simple joy of creation. The morning pages made me think about and resolve a lot of things I used to sweep under the rug everytime they resurfaced, as I've realised they don't look as scary on paper as they do in my head. I'm still writing those almost everyday. I was able to gather the courage to try something I was dreaming about for the longest time - I had my first drum lesson with a friend of mine who teaches.
And what I would consider my biggest achievement is, that I'm less afraid of gentleness, vulnerability and changes in my personal creative work.
It's a process.
But The Artist's Way surely helped me start it.

My Carpal Tunnel Sister Mishie : an interview

I'd say it's almost essential for a magazine to include som kind of an interview with someone more or less interesting. Now, there's a lot of truly interesting people in my life, but only a few of them agree to go along with almost any kind of creative mess I constantly come up with.
One of them is my friend, a computer programmer and a singer-songwriter Miška, going by the stage name Mishie.
I asked Miška if I could do an interview with her over a text message, so that I didn't have to see the face she would make hearing that. Thankfully, she agreed. I decided to ask specifically her for a number of reasons.
For one, she was amongst the first few people I told about wanting to make a magazine website.
For two, I am endlessly inspired by her willingness to test and overcome her creative boundaries and to get out of her comfort zone in many ways.
And for three, I wanted to do it out of gratitude for our friendship, that begun about two or three years ago at a random open mic in one of the countless pubs in Bratislava.
We share everyday and not-everyday happenings with eachother, feelings, personal struggles, cake and chocolate, I'd like to think that we inspire eachother within each other's creative work, we write and sing songs about placentas and donkeys.
More people need to know about this person, I thought.
And so it came to be, that one evening when we could not meet in person, we turned on our computer cameras, and for the next half an hour, I bombarded her with awkward questions disrupted by laughter.
This is an interview with Mishie.

How would you introduce yourself ?

I am Miška, or Mishie. I like to learn. I try things I'm not good at from the start, getting better at them motivates me into constantly trying new things.

...so you could say you're a student of the College of Life?

both laugh

Yeah, sure. I don't know what to say to this one.

In which field do you like to learn the most ?

The artistic one, and I also like to further develop my soft skills. Presentation, communication skills...I´d like to learn how to present better.

I think you can yap quite a bit when you're behind a microphone. Even during your streams...

Thank you, but it was not always like that!

Where did it start then?

laughter

Streaming is tied to my artistic beginnings. It helped me become more chatty.

Could you tell more about your streaming origins, and how did the community of people who watch you get together?

At first I found out about Twitch, a streaming platform. I liked the idea of being able to perform and chat with people from the comfort of your own home, without having to get up on an actual stage. I joined some communities, just watching poeple at first, and after a few months, I decided to try it myself. The people who knew me came to listen and watch, and they were very supportive.

How would you describe your music?

In the past, I used to write songs about difficult themes and happenings in my life, I used to kind of pour my heart out. A lot of my lyrics are about my dreams as well. Nowadays, I mostly write about anything that comes to mind. About dogs, for example. Or dentists. The style might be the closest to folk.

Which of the two songwriting styles come more naturally to you - the unserious, lighthearted one or the heavier personal themes?

I don't mind working with personal themes, but as of now, I don't like to get too much into those. If I write about negative emotions, it's mostly themes of frustration or being angry over something. I tend to avoid sad topics.

Out of things in everyday life, what inspires you to create ?

As I said before, my dreams, everyday situations, people I meet and also other musicians.

Do you experience art block? If so, how do you deal with it ?

I don't know if I have ever truly experienced art block. I have a lot of ideas in my head which I write about constantly, only a part of it are actual songs. Sometimes it's two sentences or just a rhyme. I have a lot of bits and pieces like that, some of it I end up using after a month or a year, some of it just stays as it is. If I actually start feeling like I have a hard time creating, it's mostly because I start overthinking it and trying to embellish it somehow. I tend to lose the flow that way. So if I get stuck, it's mostly because of some form of perfectionism, and I have to pause a little, and either let it be completely or change my approach.

What other forms of art do you like to practise ? What do you like about them ?

I like to dance. I attend latin american dance classes, I don't even know when did it first catch my interest. I used to attend those during high school as well. I think it might be because I used to watch telenovelas as a kid, and while hearing the music in those I thought "Yeah, this is cool!". I am also starting to get into drawing again, after years of not drawing, and I'm enjoying it. I like to crochet as well, but I don't look at it as a form of artistic expression. Since I only create virtual things at work, I like to make something physical from time to time.

How important are these forms of art in your life ? What do they mean to you?

It's important for me to do something that's just mine. I can create my own world, I can do anything I want in it, I find it fun. It's a form of an escape from everyday life. I don't do any of it primarily for other people, but it's nice to see that my creations can have a positive impact on someone else as well. Maybe it could even inspire.

Misal : a lovestory of spice and texture

In the middle of august, I found myself in Germany again, visiting my boyfriend.
It was as if I stepped into an another dimension. In Slovakia, the sun nearly baked me alive while cutting my babka's ten decorative bushes outside her house, while Bavaria in august felt like it was the middle of october already. We had to wear rather warm clothing while visiting parks and taking walks in the nature, so naturally (no pun intended), I was very fond of any kind of hot beverage or warm food that I could get my hands on.
Now, again, those who know, know, Prajwal loves to cook.
If music is 90% of my personality, food is about the same of his, and as a person who used to function mainly on pasta with frozen vegetables before I met him, I will always admire his passion in this sphere.
Through the five years of knowing eachother, he has managed to have at least 10 small breakdowns over my eating habits, actually teach me to cook some simple but tasty Indian dishes, and helped me upgrade the abominations I used to make for myself for most of my life, so that they now look and taste like actual food.
There have been several cases of people trying to do what he did throughout my life, but he's handsome and gives the best hugs, so I decided to only listen to him.
He also introduced me to quite the variety of wonderful dishes that I don't even dream of cooking all by myself, but I'd say that cooking them with friends or loved ones adds to their value.
And so, just like that, misal entered my life.

During one cold, windy day, with my stomach fully unprepared, Praj, his housemate Balaji and I decided to have misal to warm up a little.
I now bring to you the photomontage of the process, along with a recipe that I begged him to write down for about three days straight.
On september 2nd, he sent me an 11 pages long LaTeX file, that I will now try to transcribe as best as I can, so you too can one day enjoy the spicy explosion of flavors, the lovely, the one and only Misal.

The good, the bad, the spicy

Misal, from what Prajwal has told me, besides it being his absolutely favourite food of all time, is an exceptionally spicy dish, consisting of three main components that are cooked separately and mixed afterwards. All of those consist of many different ingredients and processes, making the dish immune to any simple way of describing what it really is, but I think it could be classified as a type of spicy curry.
The first time I heard about misal, Prajwal decided to tell me a whole horror story about an African exchange student, whom he took out to eat after school one day. The student, excited to try authentic indian food, decided to try Misal. When he did, his life temporarily turned into regret itself, waves of sweat and heat washing over him, as Misal is not only spicy in your mouth, it gradually warms up your entire body.
Now, you might be thinking, why am I writing specifically about this recipe, and why do I wish harm upon people.
Let me explain myself then :
After five years together, I have built up decent spice tolerance, but even I would have big trouble handling Misal from the food place in India that Prajwal used to go to. Like with most dishes, the spice level can be very much adjusted, although it may take away from the authentic experience, so it is not advised to tone it down too much.
In this case, I ended up only having the tarri (the gravy itself), and not the kutt (the oily part on top of the gravy), which is said to be the spiciest part of the dish.
I would have tried it, but I was returning to Slovakia the next day, and I didn't want to risk the seven hour bus journey to be absolute tiny bus toilet hell.

The Recipe

As stated before, Misal consists of three core components -
Matki Usal, Poha and Misal Tarri.
This recipe will follow the preparation of each component.

(as Prajwal mainly cooks by memory when it comes to the quantities and measurings, I will try my best at adding at least somewhat accurate information to most of the ingredients. This was Misal for roughly 4 people.)

Matki and Matki Usal

Matki (otherwise known as Moth Beans) Usal has a subtle flavour, and it is the one component that separates Misal from other onion-tomato based dishes and curries.

Sprouting Matki

Sprouting Matki is an easy task, but needs to be done 1,5 to 2 days before making Misal.

1. Take a cup of dry Matki pour water (so that it's slightly above the beans)
2. Let them soak for 10 hours.
3. Once soaked, drain the Matki and keep it in a strainer so it can sprout more easily.
4. Every 8-10 hours, sprinkle a bit of water on the drained beans, to keep them sprouting.

Matki Usal - ingredients

- sprouted Matki
- water 4-5 cups
- turmeric powder 1tsp
- salt 2 tsp

Matki Usal

1. Put turmeric and salt in the sprouted Matki
2. Add enough water to cover the Matki, a little more is okay
3. Boil, drain Matki note - do not dispose of the water, you'll be using it in Misal Tarri

Poha

Poha on its own is a common breakfast dish in India. It's quite tasty (I kept eating it while we were still preparing other things).
Poha is also the name of the main ingredient in this component - flattened rice.

Poha - ingredients

- sunflower oil 2 tbsp
- mustard seeds 0,5 tsp
- 6-7 curry leaves
- 2-3 green chillies, chopped into circle bits (Hari Mirch, indian green chillies)
- a handful of peanuts
- 1 medium sized onion
- turmeric powder 1,5 tsp
- a pinch of asafoetida (Hing)
- poha (flattened rice) 3 cups
- salt (personal preferrence)
- sugar 1-2 tsp
- fresh corriander 3-4 tbsp
- lemon juice from half a lemon

Poha

1. Best done in a wok pan, heat up some oil
2. Add mustard seeds. Once they start popping, you can add the next ingredient.
3. Add curry leaves and chillies.
4. Roast a bit and add peanuts and a pinch of Hing.
5. Roast until the color on the peanuts darkens a little.
6. Add onions. Roast until they're translucent.
7. Add turmeric powder, mix well.
8. On the side, soak some poha. In a bowl, add enough water to cover it, then wait for around 15-20 seconds and drain.
9. Add salt and sugar in the poha, add it all to the mix in the wok and stir well. Cook for 10 mins on medium heat.
10. Once cooked, turn off the heat and add corriander and lemon juice.

Misal Tarri

The main part of the dish. An angry, dangerous yet delightful aura surrounds it.

Misal Tarri - ingredients

- dry coconut 1 vatti (one half of a dried coconut)
- 2 big onions
- Matki Usal 0,5 cup
- 0,5-1 cup of fresh corriander stems
- 1 big tomato
- 6-7 curry leaves
- chilli powder 1 tbsp note - adjust according to spice tollerance
- turmeric powder 1 tsp
- asafoetida (Hing) 0,5 tsp
- half pack of Katdare Misal Masala
- sunflower oil 8-10 tbsp
- 5-6 big cloves of garlic
- 1,5 inch of fresh ginger
- salt, according to taste
- sugar 1-2 tsp

Misal Tarri

1. Peel the onions and put them on the stove (directly, not on a pan). Let them char.

A simple side dish of boiled potatoes

To Prajwal, they are essential for his Misal.

1-1,5 per person is enough. After washing them and before boiling, do not remove the skin, just make a small cut aorund each one. Boil until soft, then peel. Mash them, add salt and fresh corriander. Add 1-2 tbsp of water, so that the consistency is even softer.

Toppings

These are toppings you can have with your Misal. Farshan, savoury Indian snack, is an essential for Misal (can be found in asian stores in Europe), optional ones are finely diced onion and fresh corriander, lemon slices, pav or any kind of soft bread, and/or buttermilk (good for killing spice if it starts killing you).

Plating Misal

Everything is set and done, now you just need to plate your Misal nicely to fully enjoy it.

1. In a bowl, first put 1 tsp of boiled potatoes.
2. Add 3-4 tablespoons of Poha.
3. Add 1-2 tablespoons of Matki Usal on top of the Poha.
4. Add some Farshan on top of the Mattki Usal.
5. Add enough Misal Tarri to cover all the contents in the bowl. (Put Misal kutt on top for the extra spicyness)
6. Add diced onion and fresh corriander on top.
7. Add some lemon juice.
8. Enjoy!

See the very first picture for reference.

And that is Misal the way I experienced it for the first time.
Definitely have some spice-killer near you. You can have it with bread or buttermilk as stated above, but plain yogurt is also good, which is what I went with and was completely fine.
Have it with moderation if you're not particularly used to or sensitive to heavy food, and most importantly, if you decide to cook it, do it with someone you love. Whether it be a friend, a partner or your family. It always adds a bit of something-something to any kind of food.

Many thanks and kisses to Prajwal, a.k.a. Brown Sugar, a.k.a. The Chess Apostle for helping me with this article and baring the unfortunate burden of having a girlfriend that barely knows how to cook.

Constantly working with prompts, trying to do a little bit of something cool everyday, and creating little stories out of happenings in one's life might seem more or less overwhelming to some...and don't get me wrong, it is, but it is also too fun for me to stop it. I think stickers, colored pencils and gel pens are quite safe, and stick glue is not easy to get high off of, so I would say that this form of addiction is amongst the coolest of them all, right next to gardening and alcoholism.

Now that I have the funni out of the way, I would like to share a few cool things you can get into when you need a little nudge after, maybe, an art block period, or simply feeling uninspired and struggling to find (mostly) simple ways how to stay dedicated to your craft, despite wanting to.

These were a big one for me back in the day, and they are not easy to really commit to when life gets busy (they are challenges after all), but I would recommend trying at least one of these if you are into more extensive projects.

The first time I got into an art challenge like that was on instagram, and it was the Halloween Journal Challenge which I found on the page @inspiringjournals around two years ago (it is now out of service, as the creator of the page continues her work on the page @kia.creates , and is still posting challenges and journalling inspo stuff, highly recommend checking her out!).
HJC is a scrapbook/journal challenge, in which each day of october has its own theme. And since I love everything to do with halloween/spooky themes in general, I was immediately in.
You can do it on your own without sharing your journal - which is how I did it, or, at least during all of the previous HJCs I participated in, you could submit your creations and Kia would then share them in multiple posts during the month, bringing light to people's talent and wonderful ideas. I've played around with this challenge two years in a row, and while it was pretty hard to keep up each time - even though nobody was timing me - it was really fun. It was my little oasis at the end of a busy day, and also something that helped me build up a nice creative habit - not one where I was constantly looking for perfection, but going with what I have and what I currently can do, and making the most of it. Half an idea, or a whole idea.
A rhyme.
A picture.
A drawing.
A whole page of doodles.
At the end, it felt like I went through this whole journey, an adventure, despite pretty much only going to work, school and back home most of the time. I felt proud for filling out an entire notebook with little somethings that relfected the entire month.

I'm pretty sure Kia announced that HJC is happening this year as well (I'm way too excited to see the new prompts), so if you follow her, you'll sure get some info in a little bit.
Just remember - the journal pages that are showcased do look stunning most of the time, but you don't need fancy stickers, washi tapes or any special kinda stuff to get into it. I actually admire the people who can make actual junk journals look good the most, so you can use whatever you find around your house...or just a pen and paper. It's completely up to you. Just let yourself dream a little bit with the prompts, and you might be surprised about what your creative side is capable of.

After I've been through HJC and experimented with a couple of other random challenges as well, I found myself looking for one to do with songwriting, or music in general, as it was always my main creative outlet.
After a while of searching for anything like that, I found absolutely nothing, so I made my own. That's how my first instagram Song a Day challenge in 2023, and the second (that was canceled mid way) and third one came to be.
Even with my tiny following, I was surprised and happy when I saw my friends, and even a couple of people that I haven't ever met, actually participating. The first one was by far the most fun and most succesful (with whopping 5 people participating, say what you will, I didn't think even that would be possible), and I hope to make something like that again one day.
Seeing talented songwriters and musicians give it their best and having fun with the prompts made me feel great everytime I opened instagram (a very unusual occurence most of the time).

The downside of 30 day song challenges - as simple and "user friendly" as I tried to make them - was, that it was pretty much based on recording and sharing the songs as well for the most part, so as you might have guessed, it got very hectic some days.
Still, to me, a masochist, it was a part of the fun.

And then, after some time, it just so happened that I was preparing another one this year...and canceled it before it even begun. I had too many ideas and too little time, and it was a complete mess right from the start when I announced it.
It was rushed, confusing and somehow pretty complicated in how simple it tried to be.
It was time to withdraw from publicly challenging myself (at least for some time), and to stop treating my creative process as a constant performance. That was an unfortunate byproduct of it all, as I was putting out pretty much everything I wrote.
So I decided to just focus on work, on my band, on reconnecting with some hobbies from my childhood, and even started trying new things like practicing playing drums in a local rentable practice room.
I started to feel genuinely inspired after quite a long time.
I wanted to keep at it.
And I wanted to incorporate a little bit of the magic I was discovering into each of my days, no matter the circumstances.

I didn't want a challenge, but I wanted a playful reminder, and a way to hold myself accountable for investing time and resources into doing things that make me feel good.
A way to keep myself out of the "work-practice-(optional friend meet)-home" cycle.
One day, again, in a fit of pure genius, I took my journal and begun doodling. I started drawing these little, weird looking gnomes with sunglasses on their eyes.
One was T-posing.
One was waving at me.
Other one was smoking a cig, and another one had huge boobs and a bikini.
I drew 30 gnomes like that. I gave each one a sign in their hands, that told me what to do each day.
Write some brain-dump lyrics before bed.
Pick up your instrument and improvise.
Memorize a random Chet Baker solo.
Play drums. Go crazy.

I gave myself a little more freedom with these, as they weren't prompts with a specific theme.
I allowed myself to be as lazy as possible with these, but only in a way that would still mean I actually did what each of them said.
The goal was to commit to what I love - music in all its forms, in this case - everyday, for a month, even while out of work.
I didn't share any of it (besides occasional drum shenanigans) and I focused on doing it just for myself (which was the part that I felt like I forgot how to do for some time).
Everytime I completed a prompt, I colored the gnome in. How did I hold myself accountable? Everytime I got lazy and didn't spent even a minute on whatever it was I wanted to do that day, I killed a gnome.
A bit drastic, but death is inevitable, so why not (as of now, I am currently working on bringing them back to life - too much lore, bare with me).
I ended up with 28 succesful days, and moved on to august, for which I thought of the gnomes as a community, working on preserving something called The Tree of Creativity. Each complete prompt helped them nourish the tree, so that it is ready for harvest season in fall...and so on and so forth.
I didn't think I'd ever be writing about this whole fairytale world I invented for myself, but here we go.

I've named them Potential Gnomes - as the prompts had to do with preserving my creative potential in any area I chose, and I named their world Potentialand.
After that, I made up Disciplexus, Emoshan, Timormetus and others I won't try to explain, and a tale of the Grand Period Mage following my path, casting a bleed spell on me every month, persuading me into giving him my firstborn child...

It's a lot, I know. Sit down, drink some water.
I swear I am about to get to the point.

The point I am trying to make, while I'm pretty sure I'm just making you think I'm completely insane, is, that whenever you feel disconnected from yourself, from doing what you like, or just overwhelmed by regular but fairly upsetting day to day crap, you can always take a pen and a paper, and go to town.
Literally.
Make up a town from scratch, where you are whoever you want to be, and you're just getting through a bunch of annoying but mandatory side quests.
Make them fun somehow, or, like with Potential Gnomes, make your own quests to save yourself from burnout.
Your boss is a swamp monster or an energy vampire.
Your piece of shit racist uncle that you don't want to associate with, but unfortunately meet during a family gathering, is an abandoned talking latrine in the middle of the woods.
Your crush is an enchanted being who you must approach respectfully but with confidence, to prove you are worthy of their trust.

It works for me, at least.
I fully understand some people are busier than others.
I just believe that if you have time to scroll for an hour, you can invest that time into something you've been thinking of doing for the longest time, but don't feel like it's "important enough".
Your joy is important.
Play is important.
Feel free to play with any of these silly ideas on your personal journey.
Feel free to play in general.

I was on a call with my mum recently, trying to hang an autumnal wreath onto my apartment door.

"What are you doing, I can barely hear you!"
"I have you on speaker, I'm hanging the wreath I showed you yesterday..."
"Ah. Well, you have time, it's still summer."
"IT'S THE FIRST OF SEPTEMBER AND I OFFICIALLY DECLARE AUTUMN."

Listen. I adore autumn. For me, it begins in september, I don't care how much I'm sweating in the public transport busses. I love the colors, the themes, the crisp morning air, the clouds of fog rolling over the pines covering the hills that you can see from the cemetery in my babka's village. And although it is still not quite here yet, I would like to recommend you some places to go to, that look absolutely gorgeous in the autumnal dress.

Yesterday, a friend of mine messaged me, venting about a thing that has been bothering her. She attended an event in summer that she was quite excited about the results of. She showed me videos and pictures of it before, honestly, the whole thing looked really cool.
I'm not gonna specify what it was, because it doesn't matter.
What she was fussy about, was that she has wanted to make a compilation out of the footage and put it up on her social media, so that she can show people something she thinks was lovely, but something in her kept her from doing it, because "what if nobody really cares about it, I don't know if it's worth the effort".
My ego nearly ran its head through the wall, because whyyy is she complaining to me, someone who barely gets noticed most of the time when it comes to socials, while there's a whole fanclub around her...but I quickly brushed that off the table, and instead gave her an honest opinion.
I love to be creative, and to perform and share my creative pursuits.
I also keep to myself quite a bit, and most of my interactions with other people are me playing a role of someone they would consider normal, to a degree.
That is a beautiful combo, which results in me not being exactly the most charismatic, or good with any kind of promotion or networking.
And so, most of the time, there are only very little people actually interested in anything creative I am doing.
There was a time where I would try to make it work, but it was obviously not genuine.
There were times I deleted videos, pictures and whole posts because they didn't get enough engagement.
Not that long ago, there was a time, when I dismissed most of my creative ideas because "nobody cares anyway".
First of all, I completely dismissed the multiple lovely messages, comments and talks I've had with people about whatever I made. Even though there were not hundreds, they felt genuine and sweet.
And second, I forgot about how I myself get inspired by people with very little engagement tied to their work.
Do I engage? Do I tell them I like it? No. But I sure do think "man, this is cool". And I'm gonna start telling them.
I just wrote a sea of words and sentences, spent hours on this page and fucked up my sleep schedule, while being well aware that nobody might read any of this. But I had fun. I tried it. I brought my vision to life. And I enjoyed the process.
I'm gonna continue and learn along the way.
I'm gonna put effort into whatever I like, and won't dismiss it just because of lack of engagement.

...now, ofcourse I did not tell her all this. I just said that if she was to enjoy making the compilation, then she should go with it.
In a very broad, many words way, as usual.

And I'd love for other creatives to do the same. Big following, or small.
If it's not your job, get into whatever project you want, and do it the way you want it.
Change direction suddenly.
Find a new thing for a while.
It's all yours to decide when it comes to this shit.

That being said, seeya in October :3
If you read through all of this, you're insane (jk I love you. Okay, I don't, but like I apricciate it a lot, it means a whole lot to me), if you read just some sections, or just a few sentences, thank you.
If you wanna leave me a comment about anything, a suggestion, an opinion, or an insult, you can write here : incontinentiabuttocks1997@gmail.com
(Yes, I like Monty Python a bit too much, also Google won't send a verification code to my phone to create a new email for this thing, anyway, you can just drop me a message on my insta that's linked on the main page lol kbyeeeeeeeeee)