Reblog: How to create art and make cool stuff in a time of trouble

I’ve been struggling with a lot of depression this winter. Not from the season – which I generally love – but the fuckery which is occurring in the world. Write through that mire of emotional muck has been a challenge, to say the least.

Some days, I don’t want to open up the laptop. I just want to lay in bed and keep my eyes closed. But creation awaits and Chuck Wendig has a wonderfully obscenity-filled post for me on the subject today.

Yes. Me personally.

Okay, maybe not that lat bit. Anyway:

Right now, for me — and maybe for you — making art is like oral surgery on a rabid bear.

It’s very difficult to just sit down, not look at the news, open a Word .doc, and start writing some cool shit. It feels, nnngh, somehow precious, too special, like you’re eating cake while the house burns. “Oh, I see we have zombies trying to break down the door,” you say. “This seems like an excellent time to watch Cinemax and masturbate.”

That’s how it feels.

And how it feels is wrong.

What I mean is this: if you’re a person who Makes Art, then that’s who you are, and there’s nothing precious or small about that. It’s not masturbation. Not even in times of crisis and duress. It matters because it’s who you are, it’s what you want, it’s what you do. Art is vital, and as such, the artist is vital for making it. Part of the goal of the chaos going on is to put a rope around your wrists, your throat, and your heart and try to stop you from making cool stuff. It’s designed to hamstring you creatively and critically. You can’t let that happen. You gotta carry on. You gotta do the work. YOU GOTTA MAKE THE THINGS.

Question is, how?

How do you persist? How do you create art in a time of unfolding fuckery?

I, as always, have thoughts.

Read the rest on Chuck Wendig’s blog >>