Stop Suffering for Your Art

One of the most ubiquitous social media posts from romance fiction writers goes something like this: “It’s deadline week…family has eaten takeout for fourteen days straight. I haven’t seen the kids since last Monday, and haven’t showered in three days, but can’t stop now. Forty-eight hours left and twenty-five thousand words to write.” I know about those posts in part because I’ve made them. For five years I worked fifty plus hours a week, and wrote two dozen plus books.

Let me give a disclaimer: This is not an article about writing fast or writing slow or publishing two books a year or ten. Artists should produce whatever they’re comfortable producing, whatever works for them. One painting annually or six, a sculpture every third year, or a book a month. That’s between you and your muse. But what you shouldn’t be doing is buying into the nonsense that you have to suffer for your art.

To be successful at anything we have to work hard. Sometimes hard work necessitates temporary sacrifice, and that’s fine. An all-nighter to prepare an important presentation, a month of long hours during a product launch, those are the types of sacrifices we make when we want to be good at our jobs.

But our culture has perpetuated a ridiculous myth surrounding what is necessary to be an artist. Artists think nothing of sacrificing other income, sleep, family obligations, decent food, decent housing, travel, emotional stability, friendships, and all sorts of other important aspects of day-to-day life, because you know…The Art. But guess what? You’re an artist whether you suffer or not.

Our perception of art and artists is such that we’ve adopted the concept of the artist as driven by some inner, often demonic, voice that pushes them to produce and produce and produce, no matter the cost. Actors don’t blink at play rehearsals that last until midnight or TV roles that require hours spent in freezing cold water, writers take for granted publishing schedules that leave no time to eat much less bathe or dress, musicians work ten hour days for weeks on end, then…