Wow, thank you for your thoughtful questions! You were all asking the Big Things about artmaking, things I think about every day: how to find enough time to make art, how to afford a creative life, what to do if you feel “behind” as an artist, and how to get into the prickly private space of the unconscious to create “real” art. While I only have the capacity to answer one question right now, I hope those who didn’t get their q’s answered or those who are just tuning in still find something of value in this response.
What are your thoughts on the (supposed) dichotomy of forcing things to happen in art vs. just letting them happen? Do you feel like your writing/music comes naturally or is there a need to force things often? Can doing the latter still produce great work?
In college J. and I would smoke so much weed we’d joke we’d “broken through to the other side,” like that line from The Doors song. We’d smoke or take acid and sit before blank notebooks, assuming art would flow from our fingertips, that we’d suddenly become creative geniuses. We didn’t know how to “go there,” though. We wanted to manufacture the creative “flow state” without actually being in deep communication with ourselves or knowing how to be.
I saw shapes in the sky, I felt small, I drew squiggles and smiley faces and watched the blood pulse through the veins in my wrist. And these were creative acts, in their own way. I got to see the world differently, my body differently. I was acting in opposition to what was expected of me, in the hopes of accessing truth and beauty. But I didn’t make art. I think you need to be slightly conscious to make effective art, slightly tethered to earth, enough to string sentences together and to follow your thoughts to their tail ends. John Frusciante made notoriously awful music in the 90s because he was high out of his mind.
But you’re not asking about drugs (someone else in their question asked if I smoked “mariju-weed-a,” lol). You’re asking about “forcing” artmaking vs. “letting it happen.” I think by “forcing” you mean implementing a routine and by “letting it happen” you mean creating only when you’re inspired to. In my own practice I’ve discovered, over many years & through continuous experimentation, that there are ways to cull inspiration, to make it more accessible when & where I want. Aka combining the “supposed dichotomy” you wrote to me about.
Four things help me do this:
knowing what art inspires me
knowing myself deeply
knowing when my brain is working most lucidly
believing in myself/ tricking myself into believing in myself
1) knowing what art inspires me When I’m not reading I’m usually not making art. This is something I’ve been thinking about a LOT, how reading directly informs my writing/ music-making. In Index Cards Moyra Davey tries to break down her reading habits & how, exactly, what she reads correlates to what she makes. When she’s most inspired, when what she’s reading vibrates through her body, her writing is crystalline, sharp, and strange. It’s what she wants.
2) knowing myself deeply Do I know myself deeply? If I’m continuously changing how can I know myself deeply? I journal every morning, I write down my dreams, and I go to therapy twice a month. These things help me access memories and forgotten textures of my life. They make me feel my feelings.
3) knowing when my brain is working most lucidly I write in the morning, almost exclusively. When I first wake up, after journaling. Usually four or five mornings a week. I’ve tried every time of day. When I was working at schools I tried writing when I got home from work, around 3:30 or 4pm, but even though I had hours before I went to bed, I was completely spent, I couldn’t squeeze anything from my head. So I’d get up at 5am to write before, and while that worked much better it became unsustainable. Now I intentionally work evenings so I can wake up without an alarm and write unhurriedly in the morning.
4) believing in myself/ tricking myself into believing in myself This is the hardest part. I wake up. My brain is actually working, aided by coffee. I’ve just read a searing juicy gorgeous brilliant book. I’m primed to make things. Then I think, “I’m a fucking idiot who hasn’t published a book and is inching toward middle age and I’m so broke and this will never make me money and I don’t live in NYC so don’t know the right people and I kinda fucked up my grad school experience and I’m terrified I will die without ever accomplishing my dreams.”
Last night I couldn’t sleep. I was afraid for myself and my future, for all I hadn’t done and would never be. Then, and this feels really strange to admit, embarrassing?, I thought of this “Jesus loves me” bracelet I had when I was five, or maybe I didn’t even own it but some kid in my Sunday school did. In my exhausted hypnagogic state I thought about this bracelet & how much comfort the sentiment gave me as a small child. Jesus loves me. Forever. I am loved. I am worthy of existing. I fell asleep.
I need others in order to make art. I need people I love to cheer for me. And I need to talk to other artists. I have this writing group, and we’re going to meet every Sunday, and just the thought of sitting with fellow writers, of having that shared space where we all ritualistically meet in service of art & community, encourages me to keep going.
In Garth Greenwell’s recent newsletter he wrote about his negative creative voices, how persistent & ubiquitous they can be:
And of course there are all the voices that always accompany writing, whatever it is: this isn’t interesting, this isn’t important, no one will care, you aren’t smart enough for this, there are seventy thousand books you should read before you can think what you want to think.
Keep going. You’ve read enough, you’ve practiced enough, you’re worthy. While I personally find routine helpful, what’s most important is sitting down and doing the thing. Open your notebook or pick up your guitar. Try it now, or tomorrow. But soon. Set a timer for five minutes and freewrite, or record your voice into your phone while walking on your lunch break. Then keep doing it.
Thanks for helping to bridge that dichotomy in my mind. I guess that I have an idea that there can be a shortcut to “deeper” or more “raw” expressions of creativity. But being inspired and knowing what inspires you, knowing yourself, knowing when your brain is working, and believing in yourself takes work and is a lifestyle that tethers you and opens you up to the flow of being/creating. I’m new to being intentionally creative but this is what I believe at this point based on what you have written here and what Julia Cameron writes about in The Artist’s Way.
I’ve had acid trips where I was just freaking out and total self conscious and violently neurotic and that stems , I believe, from not being tethered by those practices you laid out (specifically not understanding myself and not putting in work to release the emo baggage I carry around). So even if the doors to the trippy realm of endless creativity are suddenly opened to me, I might not be able to walk through.
I’m high on mariju-weed-a right now and I’m trying to remember if there was something else I wanted to say.
Thank you for sharing this very thoughtful response. It was really fun to read and has given me insight and clarity and more excitement to continue creating!
Thank you also for being an inspiration to me. 🙂