One thing we often forget about childhood is just how small we are as children, and to the extent that we do remember, it’s an issue of what you can and can’t reach at that age, of looking up.
I sort of wish Freddie would finish that part as a stand-alone so I could share it w/ other parents without including what would be a strange non-sequitur about writing.
In my experience writing, there is a nebulous thing inside your head that you want to express, and then there is the stuff you have put down on paper for the rest of world to see. And there is often an acute awareness that there is a pretty large gulf between the two. And that’s somewhere between uncomfortable and painful.
I always assumed that people describing their personal dissatisfaction with writing are describing this effect. I think the fact that these people keep writing despite that, speaks to their love of writing.
I know how to interface with talking and performing musical instruments. They are immediate. When I write, I have to interface with myself. When I write comments, it’s to talk with others, but when I write alone I write to myself.
It feels like double the work to what’s already in my head, but that’s just because I’m impatient and don’t want to deal with copy-editing the thoughts I’ve already took the effort to sort in my head. I like writing, I like the process of presenting my thoughts to the world. My discipline to copy-edit myself is just poor, because I spend enough of that time in my head already.
Spot on. There's the song I hear in my head, and there's the actual recording. The actual recording can come closer to or further from the song I hear in my head, but they're never one and the same. The narrower the gap, the greater the artistic satisfaction, but there's always a tinge of frustration that it isn't QUITE the sound I can hear in my head.
I have to disagree. There is not a nebulous thing inside our heads. There is a world in which we are swimming, and that world includes what's "in our heads." Writing is a creative act, not a representational one. The writer introduces into the swirling energy a thing with an actual life of its own, like a child pushing a boat into a stream. What makes it joyful is not that the boat goes where the child wills but that it goes at all. The process itself pulls you in, engages you, envelops you and - if you are lucky - goes somewhere that matters, produces something of value for you. If you are lucky, it also produces value for other people. You cannot skip the middle part of this process, and zoom directly to what you imagine has value for other people. If you are not pleasing yourself, you are not writing, you are manufacturing a product.
I think we partially agree and partially disagree.
Writing, to me, is not a *fundamentally* creative act, although it can often be a creative act in the particulars. When that happens, I would just say that the creative process is simply upstream of the “nebulous thing,” not a replacement for it.
But whether the content of the writing is creative, technical, persuasive, or whatever else in nature, I would say instead that writing is fundamentally an *expressive* act.
There’s something internal in your consciousness, that’s not coded in the objective syntax of language. Not exactly. But you have to translate it into that. Into something objective and concrete. So that your reader can digest whatever it is you are trying to convey, and ultimately end up with something close to the same internal mental experience that you started out with.
A couple thoughts. Freddie, your first three paragraphs are beautiful, evocative and the exact kind of thing that makes me jealous of your talent as a writer. They're so lovely, I wish they belonged to a different essay. To a memoir or a deeper meditation.
That is not meant to be a critique of the rest of the post, which I agree with. Only to say that this is too fine an appetizer for the main course.
As for the writer's block memes and the insincerity of it all, I agree. I suppose when I have writer's block it's almost always because I am in a bad place emotionally, or under such stress that I am close to a nervous breakdown, where my mind simply can't order itself enough to focus on writing. Those are unpleasant times, not really times I enjoy talking about let alone joking about. That kind of struggle is generally something outside of the act of writing that has simply infiltrated my ability to do life in general. Writer's block is a side-effect. In those moments I suppose ditch-digging would be easier, but not preferable (I have ditch-digger's block most of the time).
Yeah it makes no sense. It feels deeply privileged and mostly like some bizarre pity party that's been memed into something writers are supposed to bond over. But I also feel this way about a lot of similar communities. The reader fan groups on Facebook that are just endless memes about buying books or various other banal book-related nonsense drive me crazy. Okay, you like reading. Got it. Maybe get off Facebook and go read a goddamn book already.
I understand what these people mean, I think. I write fiction, just for fun, just for myself for now, but I write. And I do not love the process of writing.
It is hard for me, primarily because I can't get into a 'flow state' while I'm doing it, ever. Almost every single sentence of any complexity takes minutes to arrange, and the arranging of complex sentences into a paragraph, depending on the difficulty of the idea I'm trying to communicate, can take even longer.
I love playing with words. I love using language in ways I never would while speaking or thinking. That's why I write. But it feels more like a logic puzzle to me than a fun activity, and most of the satisfaction comes from completing the puzzle, having finally put the sentence down on the page just the way I want. And it is in that sense that I enjoy "having written" more than I enjoy "writing".
I love your logic puzzle and flow state ideas. If I sit for an hour and grind, I know I can write a complete page. It's a logic puzzle. I can get in a flow state writing code. But I only do either for money.
As one of those many many people who think about writing, but don’t, I think you underestimate the fear of criticism that many people have. You are an amazing and brilliant writer, but you also have overcome your inhibition and embrace your willingness to share ideas, even though they can, and often are criticized. Maybe it’s the fear that these writers are expressing? (Obviously people who keep unpublished diaries are also “writers”, but they don’t have an audience).
I don't think so. The "I hate writing" crowd tends to complain about the writing process in general, no matter what. Even if you feared criticism, nothing would stop you from writing stories for yourself and not showing them to anyone. (In fact, a lot of people probably do that.) Those who claim to hate writing, hate writing even that.
Thanks for this. I doubt I'm the only one, but I do think your decidedly non-political meanderings about all the things that make life sublime, like writing, are where you land most solidly and beautifully. I'm glad you take so much joy in it, it's easy to feel that in your words.
This one casually political line though: "In fifth grade my teacher, a kindly old Republican...once told me that “scientist” is not a job." -that had me rolling. :]
I'm curious. Do you re-write much? As an academic, I've written books and articles, and I like the writing but I'm always too long, so usually have to do multiple (and I mean multiple) to get short enough. Only exception was a book where when the MS was spun-off to gauge the length, the publisher discovered it was WAY long too late, and had to increase page size, reduce margins and gutters, etc. Thus, by the time Im actually done with a MS, I'm tired of it.
I reading about writers, I've noticed the same thing. Those who re-write a lot tend to agree with Dorothy Parker. S. J. Perelman (a famous complainer), when asked how much he re-wrote, he said, "11 times. 12 and it would be lapidary."
Irony that the Substack invitation ends your post: "Start Writing."
Here's the trick, I think, speaking more than a bit from my own experience. When these "writers" aren't writing, they aren't doing something they enjoy. They're doomscrolling on Twitter, or getting embroiled in some Drama. They might actually enjoy writing, once they've gotten the inertia, which only makes it worse when they realize they've spent hours -- in the immortal words of C.S. Lewis -- "staring at a dead fire in a cold room".
I couldn't agree more. A few year back Amy Poehler wrote an autobiography, and prefaced it by saying
“Everyone lies about writing [...] They talk about their ‘morning ritual’ and how they ‘dress for writing’ and the cabin in Big Sur where they go to ‘be alone’ — blah blah blah. No one tells the truth about writing a book. Authors pretend their stories were always shiny and perfect and just waiting to be written. The truth is, writing is this: hard and boring and occasionally great but usually not. Even I have lied about writing. I have told people that writing this book has been like brushing away dirt from a fossil. What a load of shit. It has been like hacking away at a freezer with a screwdriver.”
I've seen this quote crop up again and again, with writers (or 'writers') being blown away by how awesome and true it is. And all I can think is... if this is how you feel, maybe you shouldn't be a writer? I've published one book (and just signed a contract for my second!), and writing is my happy place. Writing for me feels like a wonderful combination of being totally relaxed and intellectually stimulated at the same time. In other words, It's a flow state. I don't know why people do this if it feels like 'hacking away at a freezer with a screwdriver'. Like, that's how painting feels to me... and so I don't paint.
"The more likely reality is that a lot of people just like the sound of calling themselves writers"
"if this is how you feel, maybe you shouldn't be a writer?"
For literally any other profession or activity, this would be completely and absolutely obvious.
Writing is the only craft where being miserable is considered to be fine, presumably because of the enormous cachet and status it brings. But if someone said they hated their well-paid, high-status CEO job, people would privately feel sorry for them and even advise them to do something else. Yes somehow when it's writing it's ok?
If a famous writer hated writing, the only thing it means is that they dedicated their life to a job they absolutely hated, and that's sad. It's sad whatever job you're doing, including writing. Writing really isn't special in this regard.
One thing I find real funny is when these writers point to someone like George R. R. Martin having "writers block" and think it's relatable. The number of people alive or who have ever lived that have written more words than him is a rounding error away from 0. But yeah, super relatable.
It's even funnier when someone like Stephen King talks about writer's block.... he's just fucking with people right?
I read King's "On Writing" and he said that at his peak he was writing, on average, 3,000 words a day.
I thought "what?! Impossible!"
He then followed it up with "I was doing a LOT of coke during this period-"
Me: "Oh, that makes sense."
Probably when Stephen King complains about writer's block, what he really means is "since I got clean, it's much harder for me to delude myself that a dumb idea is actually good."
Yep, and it's not stopping him from releasing what, a novel a year?
I used to think it was impressive and admired him for him, feeling like he has superpowers or something... now, I still admire him (one of my favorite authors) but also realize there are no superpowers to the story. He keeps writing because he likes it. It's not complicated.
Regarding prolific authors complaining about writer's block: it reminds me how I would get frustrated at authors I like who are specialized on the topic of productivity and who mention, in a self-deprecating tone, their supposed procrastination issues when they have a weekly column in the New York Times and two books under their belt. When I say I have procrastination issues, I mean I'm actually doing nothing - clearly we do not see procrastination quite the same way. But of course, a person who has real procrastination and productivity issues could not make a living writing about procrastination and productivity issues, since... they'd have procrastination and productivity issues.
Read about some of the stuff these guys did to get around writer's block, like locking themselves into a room for X number of hours and not coming out no matter what.
There was one SF/fantasy writer (I can't remember who specifically) who forced himself to write ten pages a day. A lot of that ended up like "Well, looks like I'm finally getting close to the end of page 5, just a few more words and...yes...that's it! Now on to page 6." But it worked.
Either way, a lot of discipline and not a whole lot of complaining.
Philip Jose Farmer used to break writers’ block by writing stories by fictional writers. Did a whole book by Kilgore Trout once. Now that’s writing your way out of it.
If you don't like what you do for a living, do something else.
If you don't like your work, your job is likely not a good fit. What misery to keep doing what you dislike doing. Now, some low skill workers are more stuck. However, everyone can seek more skills or different skills. You might have to take 2 steps back to earn the opportunity to move 3 steps forward. But if not a good fit for your innate capabilities, you will struggle more and probably end up not liking what you do.
This is why I hate pensions. People end up in jobs they are not a good fit for, but keep their ass in the seat waiting to retire.
With respect to writing, like many "artistic" endeavors, I think there are two domains of capability required. One is the technical... the process... the techniques... the other is the brain wiring... the raw talent if you will. There is an innate capability that is either there or not. If not, one can still write interesting stuff but rarely consistently good enough to make a living.
The same is true for almost every endeavor, profession and role.
Just keep in mind that we all need to work to make a living. If your talent is lounging at resort pools looking sexy in Instagram posts... well good luck with that.
Spot on as always. And a necessary illumination of my own corniness. I definitely indulge/dramatize the challenge of balancing writing with a full-time corporate job, feeling like my brain is fried at the end of the day. I sometimes get this way when people compliment my work because I still struggle to muster a simple “thank you” without being like “well, I’m not really sleeping so idk why I do this” haha. I think it’s an easy coping mechanism for those of us who are hobbyists with dreams of solely writing. But you’re totally right: it’s annoying and takes away from the beauty of the process!
I feel like this concept represents the self-deprecating vibe of the creative industries in general. This idea that you have to struggle for your art is so prevalent that it's almost subversive to say "making art brings me joy." or "it's easy for me to sit down and write for hours." I find the tortured creative trope so trite at this point it's hard to even take it seriously.
YES! 100%
(also first)
sometimes i need to get stuff out of me...so i sit down and just unroll it. there are other times i write for a 'service' and it's more labored. like this is in the second category https://razib.substack.com/p/you-cant-take-it-with-you-straight
I like how you flexed the writing chops in the first part of this post before getting to the primary argument.
I sort of wish Freddie would finish that part as a stand-alone so I could share it w/ other parents without including what would be a strange non-sequitur about writing.
This is something that always kills me about groups of writers. The strange pose of liking writing less than everyone else.
Writing is a stupid thing to do for a whole bunch of reasons and has got to be one of the easiest things *not* to do.
I even wrote about this exact topic almost exactly a year ago: https://radicaledward.substack.com/p/why-do-writers-hate-writing
In my experience writing, there is a nebulous thing inside your head that you want to express, and then there is the stuff you have put down on paper for the rest of world to see. And there is often an acute awareness that there is a pretty large gulf between the two. And that’s somewhere between uncomfortable and painful.
I always assumed that people describing their personal dissatisfaction with writing are describing this effect. I think the fact that these people keep writing despite that, speaks to their love of writing.
YES.
I know how to interface with talking and performing musical instruments. They are immediate. When I write, I have to interface with myself. When I write comments, it’s to talk with others, but when I write alone I write to myself.
It feels like double the work to what’s already in my head, but that’s just because I’m impatient and don’t want to deal with copy-editing the thoughts I’ve already took the effort to sort in my head. I like writing, I like the process of presenting my thoughts to the world. My discipline to copy-edit myself is just poor, because I spend enough of that time in my head already.
Spot on. There's the song I hear in my head, and there's the actual recording. The actual recording can come closer to or further from the song I hear in my head, but they're never one and the same. The narrower the gap, the greater the artistic satisfaction, but there's always a tinge of frustration that it isn't QUITE the sound I can hear in my head.
Same with art. There is a picture in my head. Rarely am I able to replicate it exactly.
I have to disagree. There is not a nebulous thing inside our heads. There is a world in which we are swimming, and that world includes what's "in our heads." Writing is a creative act, not a representational one. The writer introduces into the swirling energy a thing with an actual life of its own, like a child pushing a boat into a stream. What makes it joyful is not that the boat goes where the child wills but that it goes at all. The process itself pulls you in, engages you, envelops you and - if you are lucky - goes somewhere that matters, produces something of value for you. If you are lucky, it also produces value for other people. You cannot skip the middle part of this process, and zoom directly to what you imagine has value for other people. If you are not pleasing yourself, you are not writing, you are manufacturing a product.
I think we partially agree and partially disagree.
Writing, to me, is not a *fundamentally* creative act, although it can often be a creative act in the particulars. When that happens, I would just say that the creative process is simply upstream of the “nebulous thing,” not a replacement for it.
But whether the content of the writing is creative, technical, persuasive, or whatever else in nature, I would say instead that writing is fundamentally an *expressive* act.
There’s something internal in your consciousness, that’s not coded in the objective syntax of language. Not exactly. But you have to translate it into that. Into something objective and concrete. So that your reader can digest whatever it is you are trying to convey, and ultimately end up with something close to the same internal mental experience that you started out with.
A couple thoughts. Freddie, your first three paragraphs are beautiful, evocative and the exact kind of thing that makes me jealous of your talent as a writer. They're so lovely, I wish they belonged to a different essay. To a memoir or a deeper meditation.
That is not meant to be a critique of the rest of the post, which I agree with. Only to say that this is too fine an appetizer for the main course.
As for the writer's block memes and the insincerity of it all, I agree. I suppose when I have writer's block it's almost always because I am in a bad place emotionally, or under such stress that I am close to a nervous breakdown, where my mind simply can't order itself enough to focus on writing. Those are unpleasant times, not really times I enjoy talking about let alone joking about. That kind of struggle is generally something outside of the act of writing that has simply infiltrated my ability to do life in general. Writer's block is a side-effect. In those moments I suppose ditch-digging would be easier, but not preferable (I have ditch-digger's block most of the time).
In any case, good stuff. As per usual.
I get that it's hard to do a job that you love sometimes. I don't get a profession where you get this: "Specifically, a lot of writers don’t enjoy writing. At all." And that's a common opinion. Like... what the fuck? https://laurensapala.com/im-a-writer-but-i-hate-actually-writing-whats-wrong-with-me/
Yeah it makes no sense. It feels deeply privileged and mostly like some bizarre pity party that's been memed into something writers are supposed to bond over. But I also feel this way about a lot of similar communities. The reader fan groups on Facebook that are just endless memes about buying books or various other banal book-related nonsense drive me crazy. Okay, you like reading. Got it. Maybe get off Facebook and go read a goddamn book already.
I understand what these people mean, I think. I write fiction, just for fun, just for myself for now, but I write. And I do not love the process of writing.
It is hard for me, primarily because I can't get into a 'flow state' while I'm doing it, ever. Almost every single sentence of any complexity takes minutes to arrange, and the arranging of complex sentences into a paragraph, depending on the difficulty of the idea I'm trying to communicate, can take even longer.
I love playing with words. I love using language in ways I never would while speaking or thinking. That's why I write. But it feels more like a logic puzzle to me than a fun activity, and most of the satisfaction comes from completing the puzzle, having finally put the sentence down on the page just the way I want. And it is in that sense that I enjoy "having written" more than I enjoy "writing".
I love your logic puzzle and flow state ideas. If I sit for an hour and grind, I know I can write a complete page. It's a logic puzzle. I can get in a flow state writing code. But I only do either for money.
As one of those many many people who think about writing, but don’t, I think you underestimate the fear of criticism that many people have. You are an amazing and brilliant writer, but you also have overcome your inhibition and embrace your willingness to share ideas, even though they can, and often are criticized. Maybe it’s the fear that these writers are expressing? (Obviously people who keep unpublished diaries are also “writers”, but they don’t have an audience).
Thank you for a thoughtful piece.
I don't think so. The "I hate writing" crowd tends to complain about the writing process in general, no matter what. Even if you feared criticism, nothing would stop you from writing stories for yourself and not showing them to anyone. (In fact, a lot of people probably do that.) Those who claim to hate writing, hate writing even that.
Thanks for this. I doubt I'm the only one, but I do think your decidedly non-political meanderings about all the things that make life sublime, like writing, are where you land most solidly and beautifully. I'm glad you take so much joy in it, it's easy to feel that in your words.
This one casually political line though: "In fifth grade my teacher, a kindly old Republican...once told me that “scientist” is not a job." -that had me rolling. :]
I'm curious. Do you re-write much? As an academic, I've written books and articles, and I like the writing but I'm always too long, so usually have to do multiple (and I mean multiple) to get short enough. Only exception was a book where when the MS was spun-off to gauge the length, the publisher discovered it was WAY long too late, and had to increase page size, reduce margins and gutters, etc. Thus, by the time Im actually done with a MS, I'm tired of it.
I reading about writers, I've noticed the same thing. Those who re-write a lot tend to agree with Dorothy Parker. S. J. Perelman (a famous complainer), when asked how much he re-wrote, he said, "11 times. 12 and it would be lapidary."
Irony that the Substack invitation ends your post: "Start Writing."
Here's the trick, I think, speaking more than a bit from my own experience. When these "writers" aren't writing, they aren't doing something they enjoy. They're doomscrolling on Twitter, or getting embroiled in some Drama. They might actually enjoy writing, once they've gotten the inertia, which only makes it worse when they realize they've spent hours -- in the immortal words of C.S. Lewis -- "staring at a dead fire in a cold room".
I couldn't agree more. A few year back Amy Poehler wrote an autobiography, and prefaced it by saying
“Everyone lies about writing [...] They talk about their ‘morning ritual’ and how they ‘dress for writing’ and the cabin in Big Sur where they go to ‘be alone’ — blah blah blah. No one tells the truth about writing a book. Authors pretend their stories were always shiny and perfect and just waiting to be written. The truth is, writing is this: hard and boring and occasionally great but usually not. Even I have lied about writing. I have told people that writing this book has been like brushing away dirt from a fossil. What a load of shit. It has been like hacking away at a freezer with a screwdriver.”
I've seen this quote crop up again and again, with writers (or 'writers') being blown away by how awesome and true it is. And all I can think is... if this is how you feel, maybe you shouldn't be a writer? I've published one book (and just signed a contract for my second!), and writing is my happy place. Writing for me feels like a wonderful combination of being totally relaxed and intellectually stimulated at the same time. In other words, It's a flow state. I don't know why people do this if it feels like 'hacking away at a freezer with a screwdriver'. Like, that's how painting feels to me... and so I don't paint.
"The more likely reality is that a lot of people just like the sound of calling themselves writers"
I think you nailed it.
"if this is how you feel, maybe you shouldn't be a writer?"
For literally any other profession or activity, this would be completely and absolutely obvious.
Writing is the only craft where being miserable is considered to be fine, presumably because of the enormous cachet and status it brings. But if someone said they hated their well-paid, high-status CEO job, people would privately feel sorry for them and even advise them to do something else. Yes somehow when it's writing it's ok?
If a famous writer hated writing, the only thing it means is that they dedicated their life to a job they absolutely hated, and that's sad. It's sad whatever job you're doing, including writing. Writing really isn't special in this regard.
One thing I find real funny is when these writers point to someone like George R. R. Martin having "writers block" and think it's relatable. The number of people alive or who have ever lived that have written more words than him is a rounding error away from 0. But yeah, super relatable.
It's even funnier when someone like Stephen King talks about writer's block.... he's just fucking with people right?
I read King's "On Writing" and he said that at his peak he was writing, on average, 3,000 words a day.
I thought "what?! Impossible!"
He then followed it up with "I was doing a LOT of coke during this period-"
Me: "Oh, that makes sense."
Probably when Stephen King complains about writer's block, what he really means is "since I got clean, it's much harder for me to delude myself that a dumb idea is actually good."
“Have you tried Coke?” is much better advice than most of the silliness written on this topic
Yep, and it's not stopping him from releasing what, a novel a year?
I used to think it was impressive and admired him for him, feeling like he has superpowers or something... now, I still admire him (one of my favorite authors) but also realize there are no superpowers to the story. He keeps writing because he likes it. It's not complicated.
Regarding prolific authors complaining about writer's block: it reminds me how I would get frustrated at authors I like who are specialized on the topic of productivity and who mention, in a self-deprecating tone, their supposed procrastination issues when they have a weekly column in the New York Times and two books under their belt. When I say I have procrastination issues, I mean I'm actually doing nothing - clearly we do not see procrastination quite the same way. But of course, a person who has real procrastination and productivity issues could not make a living writing about procrastination and productivity issues, since... they'd have procrastination and productivity issues.
Read about some of the stuff these guys did to get around writer's block, like locking themselves into a room for X number of hours and not coming out no matter what.
There was one SF/fantasy writer (I can't remember who specifically) who forced himself to write ten pages a day. A lot of that ended up like "Well, looks like I'm finally getting close to the end of page 5, just a few more words and...yes...that's it! Now on to page 6." But it worked.
Either way, a lot of discipline and not a whole lot of complaining.
Philip Jose Farmer used to break writers’ block by writing stories by fictional writers. Did a whole book by Kilgore Trout once. Now that’s writing your way out of it.
I have an old paperback copy of _Venus on the Half-Shell_ in my basement I think.
Is it any good? I mean it shouldn’t be, if it’s accurate to Trout…
I think it's pretty impervious to judgements like "good or bad" given what it's intended to be.
This is ubiquitous advice:
If you don't like what you do for a living, do something else.
If you don't like your work, your job is likely not a good fit. What misery to keep doing what you dislike doing. Now, some low skill workers are more stuck. However, everyone can seek more skills or different skills. You might have to take 2 steps back to earn the opportunity to move 3 steps forward. But if not a good fit for your innate capabilities, you will struggle more and probably end up not liking what you do.
This is why I hate pensions. People end up in jobs they are not a good fit for, but keep their ass in the seat waiting to retire.
With respect to writing, like many "artistic" endeavors, I think there are two domains of capability required. One is the technical... the process... the techniques... the other is the brain wiring... the raw talent if you will. There is an innate capability that is either there or not. If not, one can still write interesting stuff but rarely consistently good enough to make a living.
The same is true for almost every endeavor, profession and role.
Just keep in mind that we all need to work to make a living. If your talent is lounging at resort pools looking sexy in Instagram posts... well good luck with that.
Spot on as always. And a necessary illumination of my own corniness. I definitely indulge/dramatize the challenge of balancing writing with a full-time corporate job, feeling like my brain is fried at the end of the day. I sometimes get this way when people compliment my work because I still struggle to muster a simple “thank you” without being like “well, I’m not really sleeping so idk why I do this” haha. I think it’s an easy coping mechanism for those of us who are hobbyists with dreams of solely writing. But you’re totally right: it’s annoying and takes away from the beauty of the process!
I feel this as a parent with a full-time job. When I started writing as a side hustle, I posted this on my wall. As a joke... but also genuine inspiration. https://www.theonion.com/find-the-thing-youre-most-passionate-about-then-do-it-1819584843
I feel like this concept represents the self-deprecating vibe of the creative industries in general. This idea that you have to struggle for your art is so prevalent that it's almost subversive to say "making art brings me joy." or "it's easy for me to sit down and write for hours." I find the tortured creative trope so trite at this point it's hard to even take it seriously.
Totally agree.