I'll let you in on a little secret, something I don't know if I've ever admitted publicly. I have this perpetual fear, more like a constant worry, that I'll never create another piece of art ever again. When I talk about creating a piece of art, I mean writing a song, short story, novel, or even the weekly essays I publish on here.
It's like a continuous drip drip drip, a thought that pops into my head every day, sometimes several times a day. I know this is an irrational fear, it's a worry that has no basis in fact and has no bearing on my lived experience. Each time I successfully create and release something, whether it's a new song I write to perform at an open mic, a short story I submit to a writing contest, a novel draft I send to literary agents, or a blog post I share online, there's a little voice that pops up in my head to say something like: that's it now, you've written your last song (or story or novel or essay), there's no more where that came from.
It goes without saying that this voice terrifies me. It should also go without saying, but I’m going to stress this one for emphasis, that so far, I’ve continued to prove this voice wrong every time. You'd think I'd be able to just ignore the voice, relegate it to the deepest, darkest corners of my mind, or jettison any related thoughts as quickly as they pop up, but alas, I can't seem to shake it.
Sometimes I wonder why the voice exists at all. I’ve considered the possibility that I do need the voice, it’s a friend and not a foe, that it’s here to help rather than hurt me. Perhaps the voice is what drives me, keeps me making art, and propels me on my creative journey. Perhaps every artist and creative the world over has a version of this voice in their head. I don't know. What I do know is in spite of this voice, or perhaps because of it, I've continued to do the work of showing up, and I'm thankful for each new song or story that comes into the universe through me. I may not have a surefire way to quiet the voice, at least not yet, but lately I've been thinking about the things that have helped me show up for my art continuously. Two things come to mind: deadlines and constraints. Just over three weeks ago I came across this post by Kelsey Ervick which crystallised my thinking about constraints and deadlines, and shortly afterwards, by some twist of fate, I saw a real life manifestation of it in my writing.
About a month ago I had a voice in my head nagging me and complaining that I wasn’t writing enough fiction. It’s worth noting that this is a separate voice to the one that regularly pops up to tell me I'll never create again. No, this other voice comes around intermittently and says something like hey, it's been two weeks since you wrote a new song and went out to perform it live, you should prioritise it this week, or I see you haven't written a short story in a month, you should probably be on the lookout for ideas today, that kind of thing. Sometimes there's a good reason why the voice shows up. When, for instance, the voice nagged at me for not writing enough fiction about a month ago, I’d simply had a busy period musically. I'd just released an album and all my creative energy went towards promoting it and playing live, so I wasn't too worried about not writing as much fiction as I usually do. Still, it played on my mind.
As fate would have it, I came across a weekly writing contest where the organisers release prompts on a Sunday with an invitation to write and submit 500 words in any genre by the following Friday. Turns out this was just what I needed, as a weekly contest of this sort imposes both a constraint – 500 words – and a deadline – five days. At first I considered it a tall order, but I decided to give it a go. In the three weeks since I came across the writing contest, I've written a short story every week. The second week after I discovered the writing contest, I wrote two stories (even though I could only submit one) simply because. I had two ideas that week and I found the will and the time to explore them both. A month ago I was worried I hadn't written short stories in a while, and now I've written five more. They may not be award winning stories – or maybe they will, time will tell. What matters is I’m exercising my creative muscles and developing them, and most importantly, doing the thing a writer does, which is write.
I’d like to introduce a caveat here. It isn’t lost on me that the second head voice I described could be interpreted or misconstrued as the voice of hustle culture. Therefore I feel the need to clarify that I haven't bought into the philosophy that I need to constantly and continuously create and produce. This isn't me trying to constantly feed an algorithm or placate a system that drives artists to burnout. Rather, my continuous creation practice is rooted in the philosophy that creativity is a muscle, and like corporeal muscles, it gets toned and functions better with regular use. I’ve accepted that most of the things I write will never see the light of day, and that's fine. I'm still going to write, because the process of writing is a reward in itself, writing regularly leads to better output, writing is what writers do. And I’m a writer.
My new album, Hope on the Horizon, is out everywhere now. Not a fan of streaming and want to support my music? You can download a digital version or buy a CD now here. Thank you for listening, spreading the word, and reaching out to share your thoughts. I appreciate it. Have a great week.