Hello darling, let me introduce myself.
I am a writer. This is as much an irremovable and conflict-filled facet of my identity as the tattoos I don’t like quite as much now or the fact that I was an indoor-favoring, autumn-lover raised in Alaska. I am a writer. This is me. However (there’s always a ‘but,’ isn’t there?), I typically do not enjoy the process of writing.
Wait. What?
Why do it then?
Why would you write?
Why would you expend so much energy on something that gives you so little in return if you don’t even like doing it?
Okay, so you want to live a creative life. I know that I do. I don’t know about you, but 9-5s drain me like nobody’s business; slogging to the same job every day makes me feel like a sluggish robot with no free will and no true purpose. I need more than a paycheck. I need creative fulfillment.
“Do what you love!” they tell you. “Follow your passions!” they tell you.
“Creativity needs to be joyful!”
Bullshit.
Okay, not alllllways. Sometimes though.
Please, please, creative soul, do not be discouraged by these sentiments. There are times in life when we know we need to do something, something for us and for the maintenance of our spirit… or something for the world as a message that must be released.
I’ve always told people that I don’t particularly enjoy writing, but I love HAVING WRITTEN.
As someone who has successfully completed two full length novels and countless shorter pieces, I am here to tell you that meaningful creation does not always have to smell like peonies on a spring morning or feel like clean sheets against your cheek. It is okay if you can’t quite get in the flow. It is okay if it feels challenging. A glimpse into my actual life: I spent more time ugly crying over my keyboard than setting words down while I worked on my last novel.
Now, let’s be clear. I am not here to advise you to suffer for your art; frankly, I think the whole moody, struggling artist trope has been overdone. That being said, I also believe in the power of molding our strongest emotions and deepest experiences into creative expression…which can certainly temporarily turn one into a moody artist type. Life is full of tiny contradictions, a reality which both serves to infuriate and provide a sense of relief (itself a contradiction).
The truth of the matter is, writing is sometimes hard for me. It is hard to sit myself down with my computer, hard to avoid the glorious black-hole that is YouTube and open a Word document, hard to flesh out an idea, hard to put one word after another and hard to rearrange and edit my initial sub-par attempts. It is hard when people read it and don’t like it, or pretend to like it, or like it too much. It is hard to feel as though I might not have successfully translated my emotions and experiences into symbols that readers can then overlay onto the map of their own unique experiences and history. What if what I am feeling is misinterpreted? What if it is misinterpreted because I did not faithfully relay it?
Despite all of this, I feel as though, for me, writing is an overwhelming imperative.
It is something I MUST do, like eating breakfast before exercising, or brushing my teeth before a first date. Not doing these things is, quite simply, not an option. Not writing feels like the word “stuck.”
Staccato.
Built up.
Immobile.
Lethargic.
It feels like mud, like stagnant energy, like going to work on four hours of sleep. These feelings are suppressible for a while, but there comes a point where life just can’t go on like that for one more solitary second. This is how I feel if I neglect the part of me that is a writer. Eventually, the build-up becomes altogether too much and I just have to sit down and get to work.
Work oft proceeds both joy and satisfaction.
Throughout the years, I have encountered several interviews and musings by authors I respect who seem to mirror my experience. For them, writing is sometimes more of a necessity than a joy. Yet instead of diminishing their work, this sense of
urgency and
immediacy
that comes with an internal compulsion provides them with a channel to produce some of the most astounding work I have encountered.
I also know writers who love to write. You can’t expect to be the same as the next guy.
My message is this:
If you feel the need to paint, start painting, even if the colors don’t look quite right today.
If you feel the need to learn the guitar, pick up your guitar, even if your fingers feel fumbly.
If you feel the need to write, sit yourself down in the sunshine on the porch, or in the hanging darkness of 2am with your back against the bedframe, and start turning feelings into words … and if you follow that drive and you push and push and push, you may just find yourself racing along the long-sought-after light-filled tunnel of energy and exuberance that
feels
a lot
like
creative flow.
Love,
Lola
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