I secretly wrote an email to KEXP, one of the most fabulous radio stations ever (and it streams via the internet as well) to see if somehow, I could get permission for my husband to see Air play live in their studio today.

My email was rather cheeky though terribly sincere. It said:

To my surprise, Cheryl from the station wrote me back and said, “Come down today at 2:15.”

We were there at 2.

We sat in the recording booth with the engineer and three other people and that was it. We watched Air play but what was most interesting was all that they said. It’s my understanding that they don’t do a lot of radio interviews or performances and, when doing interview, don’t actually talk that much. But they answered all the questions with so much thought and information, that for Chris, that was the real treat because it was answers to questions he had about his own music and ways of thinking.

He wants to be in music and I think seeing this intimate performance showed him his own possibilities. It made his dream real in a way that it wasn’t before. I told him that this experience felt like the one I had at his age where I met someone who showed me my own dream and made it possible. And look where I am.

What this also taught me was that a lot of people always say, “Why don’t things like that happen to me?” but that they never ask for what they want. I asked to go to the radio station and it happened. I sometimes wonder how many more rock stars we’d have if people didn’t sit and wait for things to be handed to them.

“How does one become a butterfly?” she asked pensively.

“You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpiller.”

- Trina Paulus, Writer.

I receive a lot of email and most of the time, it’s people asking for advice on making a creative dream real. Sometimes, I’m able to sit down and reply to these emails, offering my experience or pointing the person in a direction of information that might be more beneficial.

To reply to these emails generally takes a lot of time; time that’s not paid, time that’s taken away from work, from my personal life, from rest. But I do it as much as I can because I believe in trying to help others.

But lately, I’ve been less inclined to reply to people because despite answering thousands and thousands of emails over the years, I’ve probably only ever received a handful of “thank-you’s” afterwards.

Some replies I’ve given have been long and detailed, with URLS, research and lots of information. However, I never hear anything back. No thank-you, thanks for the time, this was useful this wasn’t - nothing.

That seems wrong to me.

It’s not that I’m asking for praise, money or a big woo hoo but a simple “thank-you” would be so appreciated. I find that word is lacking a lot in this culture of expectation. I think that has to change.

This quote, I think, offers very freeing words; that there is no key to life. There is no “right way,” special road, or particular order.

When people ask me, “How do I become creative/start a business/get happy/do art/etc.” what they’re really saying is, “My world is locked, please give me your key.”

What they don’t realise is, there truly isn’t a key because, as the quote suggests, nothing is locked. There is no pursuit hidden from us, it only seems like that when we’re on one side of the door and want to be on the other. We make assumptions that the door can’t just be opened; there has to be some secret to it. So instead of just reaching for the knob, we sit and wonder where the key is.

I think the difference between a dream and reality is just simply trying. Fear and being overwhelmed create excuse after excuse as to why we can’t do something and often hold us back from thinking of what really is possible. Also, we tend to think on grand scales because dreams are huge. So instead of thinking how, after a day of work we could scribble down company names for five minutes, we instead think about how do I open a shop, pay my bills, create art and leave my current job. We often get ahead of ourselves which causes us to think everything impossible. So instead of trying, we hold out for a key.

The truth is, nothing is ever locked. Just do a simple step today and reach for the knob. You can turn it tomorrow and open the door the next.

Thanks to spring, insomnia and a realisation, there’s a new design for the first time here at Girl at Play.

It began when I was brewing tea one rather sleepy afternoon (the time when most thoughts seem to come to me). As I was rinsing out the tea pot in the sink, I looked straight ahead at the photograph of me sitting on the Hans Christian Anderson statue in Copenhagen. I took that picture in February 2001 when I was an unhappy executive. I had just come from visiting my cousins in Odense who took me to visit Andersen’s childhood home there. Although I had read his books and poetry since childhood and knew a little of his vagabond ways, it wasn’t until that trip that I became so charmed by him and his life. I remember sitting on the statue thinking, “Oh how I wish to one day have a life like his.”

Little did I know that several months later I’d quit my job and pursue writing.

I hung that picture of him and I up on the wall to remind me of what I would one day like to become; a writer, an artist, a traveller, a speaker, a friend, an enthusiast of life and creativity and in some ways, a comfort. On most days, I’d forget about the picture hanging on my kitchen wall but I’d seldom forget what I wanted to become.

However, when I looked at that picture a couple of weeks ago, the little blond hairs on my arms raised. I realised at that moment that I had done it. I had achieved my goal of having a life like his.

I was now a writer, an artist, a travellers, a friend, an enthusiast of life and creativity and in some ways, a comfort.

Sometimes a person gets so busy being in the process that they never step back and see the results. I, on a lot of levels, still saw myself as this beginner, this girl struggling, trying, one day hoping to make it. But looking at that picture as the tea blew I realised I’m not that same girl I was three years ago; I’m so much more. It was such a surreal moment.

As I sipped my tea I began to think of all the changes that have happened and how they’ve been reflected; my flat is now filled with lots of painted walls, artwork created by me, simple furnishings, lots of flowers and a general sense of ease and happiness. My clothes are also filled with colour, lots of skirts from Anthropologie, ribbons for my hair and bright, beautiful jewellery. Gone are the corporate and stiffed bitter friends, replaced by a bunch of rock stars that inspire me and give me a good ass kicking when needed. Airline stubs clog my bags instead of corporate reports and my books of how to’s are replaced by fun reading and glossy magazines from France. And that’s just a tip of the change.

But the one area things hadn’t changed was on the web. Despite liking the simple design that had been GirlatPlay.com for three years, it no longer reflected who I was. It didn’t have the colour, vibrancy, fun, life, art, confidence or calmness that my work and my life now possessed. I wanted to exude those things because I’m finally catching up with myself.

So on Friday at just a little after 11 at night, I sat at the computer and coded, designed and drank (herbal) tea until 7AM. And this is what I got.

Although the next couple of weeks will surely be bringing tweaks (putting in new pictures so my mug isn’t on every page, adding to the resources and sidebars as well as finding every typo!) for now, I’m rather pleased.

The inside seems to be matching the outside.

In the several years I’ve been working as an artist, I’ve asked for outside help with projects only a handful of times, if that.

Despite having access to a lot of fabulously talented and helpful people, I’ve never really called on any of them. Oh there have been so many times I’ve secretly asked for help but the words never came out of my mouth. It’s not that I was afraid of rejection or people giving negative feedback or help, but in being afraid that I couldn’t do it all on my own.

This has been a struggle with me because so many people think I am the one with all the answers. I am the one they come to with questions, concerns and calls for help - to which I always respond if I can. It just felt awkward to me to say, “Hey, I need some outside feedback.” It felt as though I were saying I wasn’t good enough somehow.

However, I realised this year that I do need help, especially with regards to a book I’m writing. I had the idea, I had the concept but I didn’t have perspective anymore. I had been in this book for far too long, the words all seemed repetitive and the idea almost boring. I had to create a new title and I couldn’t. I couldn’t step outside myself.

I knew I had to ask for help but it felt terribly embarrassing. What if people didn’t want to help me? What if they thought me daft for even asking? What if they thought the whole idea stupid? What if, what if, what if.

It’s a terrible state to live in, the what if state. I knew I needed to move out so I started to ask.

At first, I asked just several friends. Only one of them responded. My first fear of people not wanting to help me had been overcome - some didn’t want to help and I was still alive and no worse for wear. So I worked up the courage over the next several days to ask for more.

I put out a call on the Another Girl at Play Mailing List, asking for volunteers. I was slightly secretive about the project, not wanting to be public about something that could be seen as silly. A couple of people responded and when I replied to one with the details, I had accidentally sent the message to the whole list!

It wasn’t the error that embarrassed me but the fact I had now publicly declared my idea and need to hundreds of women! I sat for a few moments with this blunder and thought to myself, maybe this is the universe telling me I need to get LOUD and COMFORTABLE with sharing and asking for help.

So I did.

I said right after this, “I am ready for help” and then it literally started to pour in.

Lots of people were offering ideas, suggestions, information and most of all, support. In ten minutes I got further ahead because of other people than I had in the past two months of trying on my own. I had perspective, fresh ideas and most of all, the comfort of asking for (and receiving) help.

I believe that you have to actively be working on or towards something in order for people to actively help you.

So often I see people saying “I want help with my life/dream/goals” whilst doing nothing. They want someone to just drop in, tell them what to do, hand them their life and then just take over. It doesn’t work that way.

The universe (and people) respond to specifics. They respond to activity. You have to have an idea and be working on it (even if it’s just trying to really formulate the idea on paper first) in order to get a response. If you’re not willing to help yourself, why and how should someone else help you?

So much has been happening that it’s going to take me a couple of weeks to really dish it out. Many changes, new directions, lots of excitement.

One thing I want to get out before I mention other bits is that I am once again selling prints, after selling out completely last year. There’s a couple of new ones that I’ve created based on demand.

For more information, please visit The Gallery.

Last fall, a boutique owner contacted me to do some cards to sell in her shop. I told her I would look into this but never really found the time. In the winter, I sent out a few handmade cards to family and one friend, who is an artist and a production designer on movie sets, told me I should really market them because they’re really good. I said I would look into this but never really found the time.

I did, however, find the time to shop dozens of times for all the materials I would need. I would lose myself for hours picking out card stock, ribbons, colours, punches, stamps. There wasn’t anything that would make time fly faster than mentally creating these cards. But, to actually make them, well, I kept telling myself, there wasn’t time. I had work to do instead.

I went through this pattern again last night, losing myself in a supply shop, happily bringing the purchases home, knowing exactly what I want to do with the cards then saying, �when I have a spare moment in the evening, I�ll do it.� That�s when I realised that this is work, it just feels like play and that isn’t wrong � that�s exactly how it should be.

When people ask me for direction I always reply with the wise words of Carl Jung:

Somehow, I seemed to have forgotten that for myself.

With so much writing projects going on, tight deadlines, revisions, new ideas, trying to finalise books, the idea of play has been slightly lost on me. That’s not to say I’ve been working unhappily, on the contrary. I love my work and what I’m doing; I can’t imagine doing anything else. But it’s all been structured work, no free form like drawing, creating, or making cards.

I had begun to think of anything unstructured that didn’t have deadlines or a direct benefit as play and useless. If I sit and create cards during the day, there’s no guarantee that anything will come to fruition. That if I just do something that is fun with no direct pay off, it must not be work. It’s just too much fun to be work.

And that’s where I was wrong.

The one belief I’ve held very strongly is that creative people cannot do just one thing creatively. A writer cannot just writer, a painter cannot just paint, and a designer doesn’t just design. Creative people like to have messy hands dipped in many inks. We aren’t satisfied otherwise and this is OK. In fact, it’s more than OK because creativity inspires creativity. Doing many things help us to create in the different areas. Designing cards will help me to design, to write, and to remain creative. There is a benefit. It is useful.

One of the biggest struggles I’ve had working on my own is not feeling guilty about the freedom I have. The freedom to work the hours I want, to take days off when I want, to lay in bed in the afternoon or break for tea. This is a common struggle for artists and I thought I was pretty much over it. I no longer apologised for working at home while friends and family went to a cubicle. I no longer felt sheepish about saying I napped frequently in the afternoon and I could take days off without having work on my mind. But I hadn’t come to terms with the fact that play was good and useful. That creativity doesn’t have to be structured; it just has to feel good.

That’s why I called this site Girl at Play after all; I wanted my work to feel like play. It just took me awhile to get comfortable with that.

The Hip Traveller launched today, a fabulous travel web site with an article from my portfolio in it.

I believe in the cycle of support and not in the worry of competition. I believe if I want to continue to have a career in writing and in art, I must support it with either time, donations, work or purchases.