“Sure. It’s hard to be creative when the world is a shitstorm. But that’s when we need good art to escape into.” Alan Baxter
I saw this tweet yesterday, and it resonated with me. I have myself, at times, been consumed with what is going on around us so much that it has drained me of all my creativity. But this tweet stayed with me, dug deep into my creative soul and pushed me to bare myself. To create. To write.
As a writer, I can create wonderful worlds that both I and my readers can escape into when we need to forget about reality. Worlds we want to linger in forever, turning page after page, never wanting it to end. A world with no deadly bugs or power-hungry humans with deadly intentions. Or at least if I do create such worlds I can have solutions and an ending, and we can pop into such worlds knowing we have the power to close the book when we have had enough. Not stuck with ongoing pages of misery, fear, frustrations and inhumane actions.
I can develop characters that are flawed and real but who have hearts that make us want to connect with them, to cheer them on in their journeys, to be their bestie. Souls we long to have in our own reality where genuine connections are becoming harder each day. We can spend time in their homes enjoying cups of tea or glasses of wine over chats. My reader and I can be inside their minds, reading their innermost thoughts, knowing them as you would know an old friend. I can have them enjoy interesting events that perhaps I never will enjoy or perhaps I have experienced in my past. My characters can take on interesting challenges to build their personalities, to make them grow and learn. To make them better humans. Humans that I want to know and continue to have in my life, or humans who need to learn more, and with just a few of my words on a page, I can have them deal with the consequences of their actions.
In our real world, many of us feel more and more like puppets in a play where the puppet master is unknown. In my written worlds, I am the puppet master. I pull the strings even if sometimes it may feel like my characters are taking me on their journeys. But I always have the power to write THE END.
When I write, it comes from my mind and my heart. It gives me immense joy, but what keeps me going is knowing someone else may read it one day and have a moment of equal joy. It feeds my need to keep writing even when the world is a shitstorm.
Yes, indeed we need good art. More than ever. To heal our traumatised hearts, restore our faith in humanity and feed the hungry creative souls of both the writer and the reader.
So go forth, my writer friends, and create. Today!
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