Trying to Make Art Isn't Making Art

I wrote a post this morning, and I hated it.

Didn’t post it.

Debated whether I should have posted it because even when I make bad art, I want to share it.

I tried to write something thoughtful.

And that was the problem.

I tried to create art.

When I try, I’m summoning effort. I’m judging what’s good and right and a worthy idea.

I’m not just showing up to the page and seeing what comes out.

I’m not in conversation with my creative muse.

As I’ve listened to Steven Pressfield’s books and the Unpublished podcast lately, I’ve started to recognize how every artist has this tumultuous inner relationship with their craft and the things they’re creating (or not creating) in the world. No matter if they’re writing historical fiction, screenplays, or painting—ah, yes, I also have been loving the book The New Oil Painting—there’s this necessity of a muse.

Some mysterious, uncontrollable entity that is both outside and within you that pulls the art out of your body the way that a tornado pulls trees out of the ground. Mercilessly, unrelentingly, messily.

Too many times I’ve put an idea of good and perfect and worthy between myself and my muse. I have killed her before she came.

Right now I’m sitting at the dining room table at my lover’s house listening to him and his roommate ‘talk shop.’ Admittedly, it’s a bit challenging to connect to my creativity in this environment. Yet, here I am.

Just coming back again. Fingers on the keys. Words on the page.

Letting the muse know that I feel her near and that she is welcome to come again.