My creative story 

Music 

I started my musical journey very early. According to my family, I almost sang before I could talk, because honestly, I learned to talk very late due to my autism and music has always been comforting to me. Although I’ve had some music education throughout my childhood, I’m actually self-taught in most of the musical instruments I play today. I started with woodwind instruments, and that laid the foundation of music theory, but I’m completely self-taught on the piano and guitar. 

I completed three semesters of classical training in viola, which in Sweden is 1.5 years, and then I dropped out due to the school policy of age (simply put, I was too old to continue my training…) and started to learn the rest by myself. I’ve always liked to figure out things myself and almost do “trial and error” until things work. So when I’ve learned viola beyond the basics pretty much by myself as well! I did, however, get a valuable recap of music theory in those three semesters. 

When I was in my teenage years I started to write my own music. It started as shorter lullaby types of songs and gradually evolve towards more complex musical pieces. When I started to post my music online I did only post instrumental songs, and it was in 2022 I felt like I wanted to share music with vocals and lyrics as well, and I did so in my album “Voices of Recovery”. 

Now I’m studying music on Berklee Online and I focus on composition and songwriting. 

Digital Art 

My digital art and visual art as a whole, came to me pretty late compared to music. I found an interest in drawing comics in my late teens and they have evolved into a kind of unique visual style, and I got accepted into both Forsbergs Skola in Stockholm and Gothenburg School of Art. I ended up going to Forsbergs because I find it easier with distance learning though. 

I’m still learning digital art in various forms, my main field is comic art drawn on the iPad with the Apple Pencil. I did however start out with a drawing tablet that I connected to the computer, but I never really learned the hand-to-screen technique and I find it easier to “just draw on a screen” which was the iPad. So when iPads got more popular for digital art and therefore I learned more about it; it was a game-changer for me! That’s mostly how I produce most of my digital illustrations now. 

Other digital art I play around with is web development and coding, 3D modeling, animation, and graphic design. 

Writing 

I wrote my first own poem when I was 12 years old. It was not very good from a technical standpoint, but it was honest and it was genuine. So I decided I want to do more of this! 

I’ve contributed to 4 anthologies with my poetry published by established Swedish publishers. I’ve also self-published two books of my own, both are collections of poetry and short stories. Now I’m working with quite a few ebooks in the self-development and philosophy genres and they are my first work that are originally in English! 

My goal with my writing is to publish ebooks primarily in English because in today’s day and age ebooks are actually at the same level as physical books. They are just as valid and just as enjoyable as holding a paperback in the hand thanks to today’s e-readers. Because to me, self-publishing has always been hard due to printing and the costs of that. And do not forget about the formatting! Printed books are harder to design and format for me, and I want to focus on writing, not on the boring formatting part! 

Another thing I really want to do is make audiobooks as well, to make my work more accessible to everyone. 

Filmmaking 

I started with my dad’s digital camera and it was old and not very good. And in 2021 I realized that, “Hey, I can actually make quite decent films just using my mobile phone” and the rest is just that: I started a youtube channel and I started uploading. I’m learning all the techniques and technical things along the way because I’ve always been the person who does before she is ready… 

So, in the beginning, I focused a lot on personal stories, I felt a need to put them out there for others both to learn from and also for those who needed to feel less alone. Now I do a variety of filmmaking, but the common thread in all of it is personal development and philosophy - just as in everything else I do. All my creativity comes back to just that.