The idea of the suffering artist, the artist in pain, the creator who rips their soul out and pours it onto the page like an arterial spray is common in media. We see it romanticized from Van Gogh to Hemingway to Poe. While it’s true we can create out of suffering, we shouldn’t have to.
Hey, friends, I’m E. Prybylski, and this is AUTHORiTEA, where I spill the tea on the publishing industry.
Happy Oysters Don’t Make Pearls
I first heard this from a pastor of mine whom I love. I still have the little shell and pearl bead she lovingly glued together and gave out to the congregation to remind me of this. Her point, however, I feel is lost in the way people so often look at suffering.
Real talk here, pain is part of life. We can’t escape it. We can’t get rid of it. There’s no life in which there is zero suffering. As my friend Pam Shepard said, “No pain, no plot.” That’s as true of life as it is of fiction. Nobody lives a life without pain of some kind in their experience. We all lose loved ones as we age, we all stub our toes on chairs in the dark at some point, we all experience pain over romantic relationships (or the lack thereof). There is no life without pain in it.
HOWEVER.
There’s a difference between understanding that challenges in life can produce lessons and understanding that we can gain no other way and the stereotype of the tormented artist. A huge one.
Creativity Isn’t A Free Action
Creating requires energy, just as with oysters and pearls. While people don’t often think about the amount of work it is (we’re “just sitting at our computer”) it requires a great deal of effort to do this kind of mental work. Time Magazine has an article from 2018 about this. To summarize it, the mind uses a lot of calories. Your brain runs almost exclusively on glucose and uses about 20% of the body’s energy. It can use more than that when engaged in deep, heavy thought. Which is what creativity requires of us.
I point this out because the idea that we are “just sitting at the computer” is a fallacy. There’s a lot of energy being poured into this project, and when we are already running thin because of life in general, we don’t have as much to dedicate to creating. This is just a reality, and we cannot escape that fact. Creativity is a demanding pursuit that takes time, energy, and space.
Humans are capable of incredible creativity with very little, and that is easily evidenced in times when humans are in bad places and manage to do absolutely amazing things, but it isn’t our “average.” Right now, the world seems to be intent on sucking every ounce of energy out of us between the 24-hour news cycle, all the horrible things happening everywhere, the increased pressure to earn an income in a society that believes we need to prove that we “deserve” to exist… There’s a lot happening right now.
If you are exhausted and struggling and fighting to create because you just don’t feel like you have gas in the tank, it’s because you don’t.
The Relationship Between Pain And Art
Some of the moments of deepest, most profound pain can create some of the most spectacular art. Poetry, music, paintings, essays… I’m not going to pretend that pain doesn’t drive artists into spaces where they create some of their most incredible pieces. My favorite band, Citizen Soldier, began when the front man created a song while in inpatient mental healthcare for a suicide attempt. I also wrote several incredibly impactful pieces while in the same mental space (and likewise in inpatient). I have written the best poetry of my life from places where I was in the deepest anguish.
Sometimes we are in so much pain that art is the only way out of it because we have to tear our souls apart and spray blood onto the canvas. That is a real experience I don’t seek to diminish. When I am at my deepest points of bleakness, I reach for creation of various kinds. I write poetry, music, do artwork. I also connect more deeply with certain types of art at those times than when I am happy and contented.
Art is the thing that keeps me grounded and sane when nothing else holds me in place. Sometimes music is the only way for me to scream my way through the dark.
HOWEVER.
The problem starts to show when we romanticize this pain. We suggest that this pain is the best way to create. That it is necessary to make something worth sharing with the world. It is that idea I take issue with because it is simply not true. While it may be absolutely accurate that having experienced that kind of agony is often important to our ability to convey the raw emotion of the experienced, we don’t need to be actively in pain in order to draw on those experiences in order to share them.
Why The Tortured Artist Trope Hurts Creatives
This is where we get into the real meat of why I don’t think that pain and art have to constantly coexist. As a book coach, I am constantly running into people who are blaming themselves for not writing more or who are struggling with writers’ block. They come to me and often say the same things. When I ask them how things are going and what they’re struggling with, they tell me they just can’t create. And they know they need to “just sit down and do it” and are blaming themselves for not being “dedicated enough” or whatever other nonsense they have picked up.
This is not true.
While some of my most raw and beautiful poetry has been written while I am in the depths of unendurable pain, I cannot sit down day after day and write a novel while I am in that kind of mental state. It’s just not possible for me. It isn’t possible for most people, either. When we are in distress of any significance (up to and including a head cold that won’t die), our ability to create is impacted.
As anybody who has been through difficult times in life knows, we know the mental and emotional energy it takes to exist when things are hard is significant. Whether you are dealing with loss, trauma, stress, physical challenges, or other things, it takes a toll on us. Our ability to plan, prepare, and get things done is always impacted by these events.
Like I mentioned above, creativity requires energy. It is not just a “free action” (to use D&D terms). You have to actually put effort and intentionality into it. This requirement increases as the length of the narrative gets longer. That’s not to say that short form work isn’t a profound and demanding medium, but Beowulf innately took more energy and time to produce than a haiku given the duration and intensity of time and focus required. Neither is superior to the other, of course, but they take different volumes of time to create.
When you are struggling just to survive, pushing yourself to create is nearly impossible. If something tears its way out of your soul, I don’t suggest you stop it. HOWEVER it is also true that you cannot draw from an empty well. There is a huge difference between spilling your emotions out into something because your entire soul demands it and trying to drag creativity from yourself as if there’s some kind of way to make your mind and heart do the thing when it’s overwhelmed.
What To Do When You Can’t Create
Your first step when you are feeling this way is to take a step back and look at your life. Are you in a position where you feel like you have space to breathe? Are your needs met? (Food, water, sleep, feeling safe.) Are you dealing with emotionally catastrophic things right now like grief, fear, rage, or other complex situations? A lot of us are. I am. No judgment.
If you are in that place, your first priority has to be to tend to your mental and physical health. Drink the water, go for a stupid mental health walk (or just move your body if you can and sit in the sunshine), make sure you’re eating enough to meet your needs at minimum. For me that sometimes means meal shakes if I just cannot stomach eating food because my ARFID is acting up. All of these things add up.
If your emotional health is a real problem, is there a way you can make space for your creativity? Can you cut down on doomscrolling a bit and replace it with something more positive? Are you able to talk to a therapist and work on some of it?
Also, real talk? Sometimes the answer to all of those things is no. You can’t get more food because you don’t have more food. You can’t talk to a professional because you don’t have “get professional help” money. Maybe you are trapped in a situation that is absolutely draining you, and you have no option to get out of it.
Those are realities for people. God knows they’re realities for me in a lot of ways.
In those times, the best you can hope for is to be kind for yourself. Tend yourself like a garden. Some seasons produce fruit and flowers; sometimes it needs to lie dormant for a while. That is just as true of us. Humans are not machines, and expecting yourself to apply the same type of “constant productivity” to yourself that our current system tries to force onto us doesn’t work. It just plain doesn’t.
That all addressed, what else can you do? You can read. You can study the craft of writing. You can study the market. You can do a million things that relate to your writing career even if you cannot put words on paper because the creative process involves far more than words on a page. In fact, I’m going to go for a walk after I’m done writing this because it’s beautiful out, and I need to think about what my next step is going to be for my books. THAT STILL COUNTS.
You Are Worthy When You Can’t Write
I’m going to close out with this. A lot of writing groups have this artificial idea that if you aren’t writing you aren’t a “real writer.” This is absolute nonsense. Sometimes we need to take care of ourselves and survive situations that we can write about later. Sometimes we have to heal from wounds before we can start working things out in our fiction. Sometimes we need to take breaks and go outside instead of sitting at the computer and staring at the screen forever. All of these things are equally true.
If you are trying to write, want to start writing, or have had to put the pen down due to life kicking you the teeth, you are just as worthy with no words written as you are with a novel sitting on your hard drive. There is no more or less worthy. If you write (or have written) and want to write again, then you are a writer. All other metrics are falsehoods.
Instead, show yourself kindness, mercy, and gentleness. Be patient. It will come back when you are ready to do it again, and have faith in that. If it doesn’t come back, then okay. However, if it’s a fire that burns in your heart, it will show up when it shows up. The season will come for you to execute on it. That season may just not be right now.
To learn more about how I write books and what steps I think matter, check out my guide How to Write the Damn Book. You can find a lot of recommendations about how to face writer’s block, how to get started, and what you need to consider while you’re doing it. If you’re floundering around, not sure what to do next, hopefully that book will help spark your creative journey!
Thanks so much for spending the time with me, friends. If you need an editor or coaching services, you can find my contact information on my website, selfpub.me. You don’t need to do this alone.
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