I fell in love with writing in the third grade. My teacher assigned us to finish a story- I think it was about camping- and I wrote page after page.

I was hooked.

When was in grade school, I liked to write longer stories. Around the time I was in junior high, my angst kicked in, and I was all about poetry. In high school, I started writing for the school newspaper. As an English and journalism major in college, I wrote poetry, memoir, essays, as well as articles for the university newspaper. After college, I was writing mostly poetry again.

Poetry gives you more freedom to play with language. It feels looser and more lyrical. Emotions are pulsing under the surface, barely concealed beneath the lines of prose.

Poetry also helped me deal with the things I couldn’t always articulate. It was a way for me get the angst out.

But if I wasn’t sad or upset by something, I didn’t write. I just didn’t feel as inspired.

It is a recurring theme amongst artists, writers, and musicians. To make art, one must suffer. There is the archetype of the penniless writer slaving behind a typewriter in a hovel. Or like Van Gogh, painters should be so mad with their talent that they cut off their left ear and present it to a lover.

To be great, artists must be miserable and bring themselves to the brink of insanity. And for years, I bought into this idea. And I’m not the only one.

Musician Amanda Palmer recently wrote an article “No, I Am Not Crowdfunding This Baby (an open letter to a worried fan).” The article was in response to a fan that worried Palmer was using crowdfunding to pay for the birth of her baby (don’t even get me started on this), as well as worrying having a baby was going to force Palmer to lose her artistic edge.

The idea of suffering for art is so prevalent a self-proclaimed fan of Palmer’s seems to begrudge her the ability to birth a child. It. Will. Make. Her. Too. Happy.

But Palmer no longer buys into this idea.

“I have come to believe we don’t have to suffer to make art. But- still, to this day- I’ve had a hard time shaking the belief that suffering and isolation are critically important ingredients to art-making.” –Amanda Palmer, full article available at: https://medium.com/@amandapalmer/no-i-am-not-crowdfunding-this-baby-an-open-letter-to-a-worried-fan-9ca75cb0f938

It is hard idea to shake. I have had a hell of a time shaking it.

But there is a difference between working hard and suffering. An artist needs to be willing to push themself. And to be successful, there is a certain level of sacrifice required. You must be willing to sacrifice time certainly, but I would argue sanity and happiness are not necessary sacrifices.

I don’t have to write only sad stories. Sadness and anger will always be sources of inspiration. A bad date is a goldmine of material for stories, believe me. But I can live a happy life and still find inspiration. I have learned to appreciate the beauty in this world, and I would much rather surround myself with that.

One of the joys of being a writer is letting your imagination unfurl and reaching into the recesses of your mind. It is possible to invent entire worlds and languages. Look at J.R.R. Tolkien. Not all stories come from directly from a writer’s experience.

It is why I sit down day after day and put my hand to keys, the thought that today is the day I’m going to get it right. Today is the day I’m going to crack open my skull and pull out the bloody meat of my best story. And if I don’t, there are always new things to be inspired by tomorrow, whether these things are beauty, sadness, injustice, or some combination of it all.

This week’s video is “Back to Black” by Amy Winehouse. Winehouse was a wickedly talented musician, and she left us too soon. I wish she had suffered less for her art.