Tortured Artists Make Tortured Work

All my life, I have come across the dour and morose artists who seem to thrive on the dark and twisted times in their lives. There’s a romantic myth that writers need to work out of a place of pain to make good art, but from my perspective, pain rarely makes anything good. It is a destructive force that can decommission the healthiest among us. Whether I am battling chronic back pain or a bout of depression, the lowest moments of my life have drained me of all my energies, including the creative kind. It can be difficult to draft stories of those who fight through hardship when hardship, itself, is bearing down like a train on the track.

 From my experience, artists of all kinds can find writing through the pain of something therapeutic, but I have always wanted to enjoy something else to take my mind off it. Whether it is a familiar TV show, a comforting video game, or just the company of my friends and family. I always need time to recover before I can find the right headspace to, well, write. I find that great art usually is born either from moments of happiness or boredom. I write when I find that my busy life parts for a bit to give me a moment to breathe and reflect. I’ve spent a lot of late nights after my children have gone to bed to hammer away at the keyboard, but those moments are like a still morning overlooking a misty lake. It is a peace that provides a flow of thoughts and ideas to be translated to character conflict, mystery development, amplified tension, or even comedic relief.

 It might not be the most romantic notion that a writer needs recovery and time to be in a good headspace, but it is a very real one, for me. It is much better to try to work out any problems I have before I can sit down to write freely. Sure, everyone is different, and this might not be true for every writer. I just know what works for me, and I have spoken to many other writers who agree that happy writers make better art.

Happy New Year.