#also i kno lots of folks do have deadlines and real consequences 4 being slow at art but if you are imposing them on yourSELF on principle

[giantkillerjack]

[EDIT: SO I MAY HAVE SLIGHTLY MISINTERPRETED THIS AS IT SAYING YOU SHOULD WRITE EVERY STORY YOU THINK OF BUT HEY LISTEN IF YOU HAVE EVER FEARED LOSING YOUR ABILITY TO CREATE ART, I THINK READING WHAT I WROTE MIGHT LEGIT HELP SOMEONE]

I mean, if architects actually built every building they built in their mind while showering, they each would already have built an entire city by now.

If every artist just drew all of the ideas they have on their commute, they would all have portfolios that could fill the Met.

But there are limited number of hours in the freaking day, y'all. Writing is an act of creative construction that requires skill and practice and a lot of time. You can learn to be faster. But guess what! That also takes! A LOT OF TIME!!

Don't be too hard on yourselves. Please. I'm so fucking serious about this.

I get that this tweet is probably a joke, and that is fine. But when I was younger, I would have read this post and then immediately thought about what a lazy piece of shit I was for not having written more, so I wanted to say:

Labor and time are deeply finite resources, and if you are living in capitalism, it pays to look out for language that does not acknowledge this truth!

(It's like when people point out that poor folks could technically eat healthier for the same amount of money: they always tend to leave out the hours of labor thatcooking requires from people who are already overworked! But it is a *cool fun way* [sarcasm] to ensure that folks are shamed for their poverty! Which also helps to keep them in it. Check out the Folding Ideas video about chicken nuggets for more info on that.)

Again, I don't think this person is bad for making this joke; it is not a horrible terrible thing to say and this is a very specific personal reaction I am having. But I just need people to know, in case they are like me, that absolutely no one is writing the entirety of every idea they have in the shower because that's impossible. The only exceptions are people who have very few ideas (in which case I don't think that sounds ideal) and also probably, like, Stephen King or whatever. (p sure he sold his soul to write that fast tbh. don't compare your writing speed to Stephen King, kids; he is a cryptid).

ALSO the POINT of brainstorming is to come up with more ideas than you could possibly finish!!! That's how you find the best ones! By having a lot of them!

And the moment you constrain yourself with a rule that says you have to follow through on every idea you have, your wild garden of ideas will cease to get the fresh air it needs to be free and growing! It will begin to wilt! You cannot FORCE a garden to grow better. You can only give it patience and care. (People are a lot like that too, despite what you may have heard.)

Not to mention, if you try to grow your garden with brute strength, you may end up pulling things up by the roots. Or, even worse, you could end up like I did: utterly fucking terrified as I watched it slowly die - not knowing how to stop it or if it is even possible for it to come back. (There was a garden here, full of living things, and now it is so horribly, devastatingly empty. What if it is empty forever?? What if *I* am empty forever? Why can't I push harder and FIX it??? Maybe if I push harder...)

And if this has happened to you, PLEASE know that IT IS ABSOLUTELY POSSIBLE FOR IT TO GROW BACK.

Because mine did. Better than before, even.

Not the same; never the same, and certainly not easy. But beautiful and mine and stronger and better. For me, it took intensive treatment for my severe mental and physical illnesses. And that work helped me to realize that I deserve to make art from a place of joy. For myself and no one else; not for profit or recognition - just for me. For the first time in YEARS.

Turns out that, for me, this was the first seed I needed to start regrowing the creative garden in my brain. Of course, I had to practice this new self-kindness: I had to keep choosing to do it again and again and again; I had to learn how to recognize and respect my own limits; I had to mess up a bunch; and then I had to try again. And to my absolute astonishment, the garden grew. It grows.

It feels like home again, in my heart and my mind. It is the farthest thing from empty.

I still have to do a LOT of conscious work (this is not the kind of post someone makes when this isn't taking conscious work; it is HARD and I frequently fully miss my body's cues), but I'm getting better the more I practice. And I'm getting... happier the more I practice. Which seems obvious, but it really isn't if you grew up only knowing how to motivate yourself through shame and fear.

And even though this year has been an absolute shitstorm, my garden stayed alive and helped sustain me this time.

I hope I am always so blessed that my shower time is full of more stories than I could ever finish in my lifetime. I hope if I lose it all again, I never forget that it can grow back.

Remember, comrades:

Dead WIPs are just fertilizer for new ones to grow out of.

It is straight-up anti-capitalist and radical to create art on your own terms and for your own joy (though professional artists still deserve respect and fair pay because we are all in this together!)

No garden of creativity is guaranteed to stay dead as long as you are still physically alive.

And if you feel dread at the idea of doing MORE of something you're supposed to love, then... maybe you are already doing your best. And maybe you deserve some kindness for that.