There’s this idea of the suffering artist. Of all the work that needs to be done, the sleepless nights, and the sacrifices. The miserable, miserable work work work that it takes to succeed.
Don’t get me wrong- there is certainly something to be said for hard work. For perseverance and not giving up.
For paying our bills, being responsible, and showing up to put our butts in the chair every day.
But sometimes… even often, dare I say? Sometimes it can be fun. It’s supposed to be fun.
In her wonderful book The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron talks about our inner artists as a child that just needs to be nurtured and set free.
Play can be valuable and magical. It allows us to see the world with wonder and to unlock our creativity and the art within. Because there is art within us, great stories and dreams and brilliance!
But sometimes we bury ourselves and our art under work. Maybe we stop ourselves from making art because we’re too busy making our art into work.
But what if it were easy?
This is a question that Tim Ferriss asks and it’s an important one. Often we make things more complicated than they need to be.
Instead, can we take a step back, take a deep breath, and look at what we’re doing? What do we really want? Are we making things harder than they need to be?
Instead of making things more complicated, can we eliminate anything that’s not absolutely needed?
What would we create if we could create anything? If we could spend our time and money however we wanted?
Often we are afraid of easy.
We are afraid that if it’s easy that means we aren’t doing a good enough job and that we will fail. That we can’t earn the respect of others. We are afraid of failure and we are afraid of looking like a fool.
We might be afraid that if it is easy then we will have no excuse not to succeed- and that can be just as overwhelming as failure. We can be fearful of success because it brings change, unknowns, and higher stakes.
There are a million things we can be afraid of.
Often in our consumer culture we are taught that our worth is tied to our productivity which is tied to our hours worked. That hard work equals better output which equals some measure of our personal value.
Rubbish.
You are valuable and it has nothing to do with anything you may do or not do.
And those concepts of productivity are outdated anyways. More and more research is showing that increased hours at work don’t always lead to increased output and sometimes may actually lead to decreased level of quality or quantity of production.
It’s time to throw away the lies that working ourselves to the bone is somehow a good thing. We need to reject the idea that being miserable is the goal.
What if it were easy? What if it were fun?
There is often still work involved in making art but we should be finding what we like, finding what works well for us, and leaning into our joy. We should be letting ourselves have fun with it.
What does that look like?
Well, it looks different for each one of us.
Maybe you want to sign up for NaNoWriMo and the madcap challenge and encouragement of a community that is all writing novels in the month of November. (Coming up soon! Check it out!)
Maybe it looks like you taking some time to yourself to rest and think about what you really want.
I am partial to journaling, myself. Sometimes the practice of pulling out my notebook and telling myself I’m going to write some morning pages feels overly simple. Almost too easy. And yet it’s one of the most useful things for centering my thoughts and processing who I am and what I want.
Sometimes even the things we love might not be fun every single moment and that’s okay. There’s still work to be done and tasks that we will need to force ourselves to accomplish.
But sometimes… sometimes it can be fun if we’re willing to let it. I hope you let it. I hope you’re able to take the chance to play a bit today and to enjoy your art. Happy writing!
