GSA audition was a few weeks ago. Long story short, I had a life epiphany.

(Copied and pasted from an email to a friend, sorry)

I've arrived at the rather late conclusion that I am not a performer and never can be one and in fact do not want to be one at all. It should have been obvious due to my crippling anxiety concerning my vocal music audition and that the thought made me physically ill and the prospect of singing in front of anyone was not something I looked forward to in the slightest and I would be miserable spending three weeks doing so. However, I pulled a pretty fucking great short story out of my ass the day before for my creative writing interview and I didn't worry about it in the slightest.

Vocal music was terrible because I was extremely nervous. I'm pretty sure I did fine on my solo, at least comparatively, but the sight reading was like sock sliding on ice, and the pitch memory was a train wreck through the nine levels of hell on loop. And the judges spent the better part of my interview talking about how great Laikin and Andrew are while I stood there like THANKS BITCHES I THINK I KNOW WHAT I DON'T WANT TO DO IN LIFE

SEE GSA IS SO LIFE CHANGING THAT YOUR LIFE CHANGES BEFORE YOU GO AND WHETHER OR NOT YOU GET IN

I was also reminded of how much I hate singers and why I was happy about quitting my choirs. Sitting there waiting with fellow vocalists was like being surrounded by a dozen Dowager Countesses of Grantham. They sound like they're making friends and informing each other of what groups they've sung in and who they know and such, but they're actually sizing each other up and thinking of how to eliminate the competition. I find that all young performers are like this and I would have been no happier in instrumental music.

CREATIVE WRITING WAS THE BEST THING EVER AND I MAY ACTUALLY BE DEVASTATED IF I DON'T GET IN FOR IT I WILL GIVE NO FUCKS ABOUT VOCAL MUSIC IT USED TO BE THE OTHER WAY AROUND

THESE ARE MY PEOPLE AND I MADE A FRIEND JUST FOR MENTIONING FANFICTION

Creative writing is the only discipline in two parts: you send in your portfolio in December, and in January you are told if you get an interview. The interviews are done in groups of six and are quite painless.

Writers are still competitive shits. But creative arts are much different from performing arts. In the latter, aptitude is easily measured by factors like intonation and flexibility and such. Actors and musicians and dancers are assessed on how they deliver someone else's work. Visual artists, architects, and writers are harder to classify. I think that all they look for is honest dedication and genuine eagerness to learn, along with basic competence.

CONCLUSION: I am a writer. Honestly, I don't know why I'm just now realising this. I've been writing since third grade, and between then and now I've quit piano, started singing, given up on guitar, quit several choirs and one orchestra—I want to write. I'm interested in radio and theatre and television. That's all I've been interested in all my life, broadly speaking. From Teen Titans and Pokemon to Downton Abbey and The Hour, from fucking Ouran High School Host Club and Twilight to A Little Night Music and Eugene Onegin. I thought it was performing it, but it wasn't. It was creating it.

THIS IS SERIOUS SHIT BRO I THINK I JUST FOUND MY PURPOSE

I EVEN THINK I'D BE HAPPY AS A JOURNALIST OR AN INSTRUCTION MANUAL WRITER IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE ART I JUST LIKE SAYING SHIT

Although, I am still interested in singing and all that, and even acting. If I were a man, I could make appearances in shit I've written like Mark Gatiss. But I'm not. So I'm going to go think of vaguely masculine European pseudonyms so people will take me seriously. J.K. Rowling had to so publishers would read her drafts, and she's already white.