making things is hard - by Ava - bookbear express

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There is so much mystique around the creative life. It’s fetishized and coveted and seen as mysterious even by the people who inhabit it. We have a cultural script that says: There’s too much consumption, not enough creation! If you want to be a [tasteful/interesting/admirable/happy] person, you should make more things. But then also: Social media has lowered the bar to creation too much. We’re drowning in terrible content. You should be ashamed if you put mediocre things into the world! I notice a lot of “how to be a writer/how to be a better writer/how to start making things” content out there. Which totally makes sense to me: when I started writing more, I very much was like, how does one do this? Are there are a set of instructions? I read The 90-Day Novel, I read about daily routines of various writers, I read Paris Review interviews. Highbrow, lowbrow, whatever, I was just curious about how people did it. What I found confused me. Everyone’s process is different, which makes it h

Cecily Brown, Untitled (The Call of the Hunting Horn), 2019 There is so much mystique around the creative life. It’s fetishized and coveted and seen as mysterious even by the people who inhabit it. We have a cultural script that says: There’s too much consumption, not enough creation! If you want to be a [tasteful/interesting/admirable/happy] person, you should make more things. But then also: Social media has lowered the bar to creation too much. We’re drowning in terrible content. You should be ashamed if you put mediocre things into the world! I notice a lot of “how to be a writer/how…

making things is hard - by Ava - bookbear express

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