Current Events > How do creative people handle mediocrity?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I love to write. I've written two novels and a number of short stories. I genuinely enjoy doing it, and I already have four story ideas in mind to work on next.

The thing is...I suck. Pretty much any time I send anything to anyone, they start it but don't finish. At best, I get a halfhearted "It's okay" or "It's not bad" or something that just seems like politeness more than anything.

I want to keep doing it, but I'm also a pretty neurotic person with a lot of issues with both anxiety and depression. I'm having a lot of trouble simply handling coming to terms with my lack of ability despite continuing to try my best.

Are there any creative types out there who have experienced something similar? It's really hard to stay motivated after a while when I'm painfully aware that I'm not very good and likely never will be.
---

First of all, don't do it for validation or for a checklist to please people.

Creative work first and foremost should be for yourself if you're not being contracted. Tell the kind of story you want to read. Be selfish, amaze yourself, disgust yourself.

Because in the end, if you don't like it, what does it matter?
---

LightningAce11 posted...

First of all, don't do it for validation or for a checklist to please people.

Creative work first and foremost should be for yourself if you're not being contracted. Tell the kind of story you want to read. Be selfish, amaze yourself, disgust yourself.

Because in the end, if you don't like it, what does it matter?

I think that this mentality has kept me going up until now, but at some point my lack of skill has really started to erode my will to continue. I try really hard, but I just look back and criticize myself and think about all of the things that I did wrong.
---

What's your end goal. Do you want to live off this? Because that is very hard to do unless you have good contacts that can market it for you.
---

LightningAce11 posted...

What's your end goal. Do you want to live off this? Because that is very hard to do unless you have good contacts that can market it for you.

In a perfect world, I'd love to.

I'm sure it'll never happen, though.

I'm not sure about the precise end goal, I guess.
---

Bump.

Maybe it's dumb, but I've been pretty down about this lately honestly.
---

Ask for constructive criticism from readers. Figure out specifically which areas you need to improve in and focus on that
---

There is a phase you reach where you're good enough at your skill to be able to RECOGNIZE good/bad design but not good enough to be able to PRODUCE good design. And it's really frustrating. But you just have to push through that phase until you are able to make good design. It's just something everybody goes through.
---

Not to sound harsh but a lot of creative types just dont have that it factor in what they put out. Failing as an artist is extraordinarily common. Just because you have creative yearnings doesnt really mean all that much. However, that doesnt mean you cant practice and get better. Outside of something like music - where people make or break very young, relatively - you got countless examples of artists finding recognition only later in life. If not after theyve died (especially with painters). But yeah, read up on renowned authors. Plenty had years if not decades of being considered a failure before they struck a chord with the reading public.
---

masticatingman posted...

Outside of something like music - where people make or break very young, relatively - you got countless examples of artists finding recognition only later in life.

speaking as a professional musician, I would like to correct your statement. there are lots of people who started later in life, and lots of people who didn't get recognition until later in life.

@ TC: remember that creative work is a process, not a static state of being. it's not about being good; it's about improving a little bit every day.

here's a little relevant bit from David Byrne's book:


---

TeaMilk posted...

Ask for constructive criticism from readers. Figure out specifically which areas you need to improve in and focus on that

Sadly, I don't really have any readers. I've asked my friends to read it, and most of them decline, and the few who accept end up dropping the stories a bit into them. It usually just ends up making me feel worse about it all.

Wetterdew posted...

There is a phase you reach where you're good enough at your skill to be able to RECOGNIZE good/bad design but not good enough to be able to PRODUCE good design. And it's really frustrating. But you just have to push through that phase until you are able to make good design. It's just something everybody goes through.

I think that this is where I'm at now, and yeah, it's very frustrating.

masticatingman posted...

Not to sound harsh but a lot of creative types just dont have that it factor in what they put out. Failing as an artist is extraordinarily common. Just because you have creative yearnings doesnt really mean all that much. However, that doesnt mean you cant practice and get better. Outside of something like music - where people make or break very young, relatively - you got countless examples of artists finding recognition only later in life. If not after theyve died (especially with painters). But yeah, read up on renowned authors. Plenty had years if not decades of being considered a failure before they struck a chord with the reading public.

I know. It's honestly cruel. I'm passionate about writing and I love to do it. I think that creative writing (whether it be as a novelist or writing for shows or games or something) is probably the only field where I'd ever be truly happy, but it's also hard to break into it, and I have very little talent. Being passionate about something but hitting a wall like that is really heartbreaking.

averagejoel posted...

masticatingman posted...

Outside of something like music - where people make or break very young, relatively - you got countless examples of artists finding recognition only later in life.

speaking as a professional musician, I would like to correct your statement. there are lots of people who started later in life, and lots of people who didn't get recognition until later in life.

@ TC: remember that creative work is a process, not a static state of being. it's not about being good; it's about improving a little bit every day.

here's a little relevant bit from David Byrne's book:

That's probably what I need to do, I guess. It's just disheartening after a while when I've been at it for a long time (I've been writing stories in some capacity since like middle school and I'm 28 now) and I feel like I'm not really progressing much at all.
---

Honestly, the way I cope is having slight overconfidence in the quality of my writings (mostly philosophy and poetry) despite them not receiving an incredible amount of attention. I think of figures like the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer whose works were somewhat ignored for much of his early life, yet he retained the belief that his efforts were valuable and continued writing anyway. By the age of about 50-70 (can't recall exactly) he finally began to receive the great recognition he deserved. Realistically it's probably very difficult to maintain this sort of mindset but maybe you'll find it inspiring.
---

https://www.dropbox.com/s/eb7kcsse5jf73ax/5%2013.docx?dl=0

If anyone is bored and wants to read something short that I wrote, I came up with this idea yesterday and wrote this out before bed last night. It's less of a story and more of a small exercise in existential horror. I'm not sure if it's any good, but I thought it was an interesting idea to explore, so I gave it a shot last night.

Edit: Oh, and just so I don't sell myself super short, I used a fairly different style for this story. I typically write with much more detail, but I used a very simple style for this particular story, partially due to the nature of it. It probably comes across as more basic than I had intended. I'm not an expert writer at all, but it occurred to me that someone might read think I can only write on like a 5th grade level or something. I tried to keep it in a simple style strictly for effect, but that may not be super clear. If there's any feedback that anyone can offer, though, I'd really appreciate it.
---