Writing Today: An Honest Session

If I'm honest, I didn't have a blog post planned for today.

Usually, I plan all my blog posts monthly. That means, every Saturday I know exactly what I'll be writing and when so I prepare it and I plan it and I'm ready. Always. Except today.

Time was not on my side this week and though I do have a long list of blog ideas I could have just plucked from, I would not have done them justice. I wasn't prepared nor did I have the prior research so writing them quickly just for upload-sake today would have felt like a lie, you know? Not really my style. So, that left me with nothing.

Then, I contemplated cancelling. Calling it quits. Throwing in the towel. Going back to bed. But, then I kinda remembered why I do this in the first place. This entire blog, this entire website is a reflection of me and I am inexhaustible. There is always something I have to say, I just have to figure out what it is. So it led me down a rabbit hole of introspection and while listening to 'Sincerely, Say' it all came to me.

Today, I want to talk about what it means to be a writer in the modern age and the importance of honesty to create real things. Sometimes the schedules we set for ourselves as creatives are actually just boundaries and if we don't pay attention we can lose ourselves.

The Pain of The Grind

Being a creative today means doing everything on your own, at the same time, to the best of your ability with little to no recognition. The kill or be killed process of success we glorify in today's age is big among those of us trying to be something new and different. However, while it may work for other people in different careers, as creatives, I think it acts as a slow poison. I mean, we've kind of trapped ourselves into this rigid structure of update schedules and we map out engagements and write emails and I mean, it's all normalized. But we have to remember that we are people that run off of fickle things that cannot be contained like inspiration and emotion. How do we build a career, truly, when we exclude those things?

Work ethic is good. I'm not saying it isn't. But sometimes I think we fool ourselves into working so hard that we lose sight of our message. We tell ourselves that we need to upload this now because this is the best time for people to see it or we need to write this so that our stories will connect with more people but often times these ways of thinking come with a cost. We forget what we're writing and why we're writing it. We just know that we do it over and over again, like a hamster on a wheel.

The Burnout

And this is why so many creatives nowadays go through burnout like an addiction. We brick out spontaneity and construct prison cells around ourselves because we think being contained is somehow equivalent to being productive. Then, we don't even realize where we are until there's not a single ray of light left and we spin and spin and realize we've made our own personal hell (I know I'm really extending this metaphor but I think it's pretty accurate). That's what burnout is. When we forget the reason for doing what we do we lose purpose. That kind of thing invites tire and stress.

Emotion as Inspiration

I can't recall writing anything that I thought was brilliant in a time I had predetermined for writing. I think the best things come from the points in time where I just feel something so strongly that writing it down is almost natural. In those moments, I think, every image is so much more vivid and the words just seem to click.

Now, I'm not saying we should all throw away our schedules, if we did that we would never get anything done (procrastination is a killer), but what I am saying is that our schedules should be a guide, not a prison warden. How are we supposed to write anything meaningful if we don't give ourselves the space to feel meaningful things.

So then, it kind of takes on this snowball effect, right? We no longer have inspiration because it has all rotted away and at this point we become machines, producing some manufactured thing. A carbon copy of the real things we used to make. That, I think, is the biggest sinner as a creative. We need to be honest. Always. But we can't be honest if we're too focused on selling our big story.

Conclusion

In the end, I suppose, as creatives we need to be careful of the tasks we set for ourselves and be cognizant of the fact that we need to be unpredictable. Give ourselves time and space to feel and think because those things keep our brain hydrated.

If you guys could relate to the stuff I spoke about today be sure to drop a like by clicking that little heart icon below and leave a comment letting me know your own experiences.

Lastly, don't forget to follow me on Wattpad to read all my works (Wicked, Wild, Wonderful is back and upload are ever Friday) and Twitter and Instagram where I occasionally rant, share music and discuss the pains of being a creator.

P.S. the aesthetic for today's post comes form @lbriscoe on tumblr!