I Want to Create, So Why Can't I?
I’ve always been a relatively creative person. In a little box of keepsakes that almost every mother has for her children, mine has filled hers with countless pieces of art that I have made throughout the years. I believe the oldest is something I ‘drew’ before even being a year old, which I think – in technical terms, at least – classifies that as being vintage. How horrific for me.
Creativity goes hand in hand with imagination, something I have also been quite adept at from a young age. Apparently I have always had a habit of talking to myself. This was made much more obvious upon receiving a cassette recorder as a gift one year. My father is ex Royal Signals, so I think it was something they either had access of or just didn’t need any more. Either way, it wasn’t a gift with much forethought as I was only given one cassette and when I asked for more I was met with a hard-line “No.”
So, there I was, around 4 years old or so, recording over the same cassette over and over again with little snippets of whatever was entertaining to me at the time. I still have this cassette, actually. A large chunk of it is filled with me riffing a melody off my keyboard and singing a song that I've made up on the spot. It’s been a while since I listed to it, but I recall that the lyrics were usually quite bittersweet? I remember singing about love, but also loss and feeling lonely. Is that impressive for a 4 year old? I guess it is. It probably would be even more so now. No one really even noticed back then.
Other recordings include Barbie playtime, acting out improvised lines. I remember listening back after recording and being so proud and entertained by myself. There are also sessions where I would pretend to host a radio show with my neighbour. When we moved away, I listened to that side of the cassette a lot.
As I got older, I leaned into what we now call the ‘Indy Web’, and my frequent website of choice was Piczo (RIP my friend…) Off the back of this, I started writing fan-fiction. Sonic fanfiction, to be exact, in a furry magenta notebook with equally vibrant pink pages. I would bring it to school every day and my best friend would demand to read it, requesting lengthy updates to happen over the weekend. She didn’t even like Sonic, she just enjoyed my story. I never really thought about that all that much, but that sort of support went a really long way for me at the time.
It wasn’t until I fell into a deep and dark depression that any sort of passion I once had dropped off the face of the Earth. I was only 17, but at the time I felt so adult and the World was so horrifically terrifying. I locked myself in my room for half a year, only coming out to use the toilet. I don’t remember eating, but I must have. I know I scared the absolute shit out of my mother during that time, to the point where she called my step-mother for help (and by then, she herself had also divorced my father, so we were really in the trenches.)
I slowly gained my passion back as I got better, but I don’t think it has ever fully recovered. Creating anything still has this… performative taste to it. I don’t think that was helped by the fact that my artistic arc gracefully went from rising into a digital Huion high, to dipping into the draining reality of opening up commissions. Each to their own, but doing commissions exhausted me. I hated opening up Clip Studio, and stopped drawing all together because I convinced myself that if I wasn’t working on commissions then I shouldn’t be allowed to draw at all.
I have been trying to find that spark again lately, but it has mostly turned spending-fuelled dopamine farming. I have bought so many new different mediums to use, and have barely used any of them. I swear the majority of our spare room is just filled with random untouched art supplies.
I miss painting, I miss drawing, I miss creating. Yet, I just can’t bring myself to actually do it. I freeze at the sight of a blank page. I sketch something and because I can’t make it as perfect as it is in my head I lose all willpower and give up.
When I think about my creative process before, I can’t remember it being this difficult. It wasn’t a chore or a task I had to set time aside for, I just did it because I wanted to. It was fun, no matter the outcome. Nothing ever looked ‘bad’ to me when it was finished, it just looked finished and that made me proud.
Where did that feeling go? Why am I convinced that I need permission to start and praise to end? Why isn’t my own pride enough anymore? I’m so endlessly frustrated by this loop. I know there is no one I need to impress, so why am I acting like there is.
If I’m not creating anything for myself then who am I really creating for?
