ghost rights activist

The Shape of Ideas

hey you. indie creator. get rid of the corporate execs and the imaginary writers room in your brain. the cynical youtube reviewers and disney fans who want sanitized uwu gays probably are never even gonna be even slightly aware of your existence. write those unrelatable blorbos and those messy themes and that weirdly sexy violence. you have no one to answer to but yourself. give yourself what you want and maybe some day, some 3 random lesbians from the internet whose interests you have somehow exactly hit will look at your thing and think its pretty cool, and in the end thats all you ever needed

I NEVER NOTICED THIS POST TOOK OFF everyone who said they rly needed to hear this, we r in this together babe we will get it, eye of the tiger lets go

"if we get another (this weeks problematic media) because of this fucking post im gonna kill you" you saw a post like this thats meant to encourage people to work on their art and that was your first thought? sounds like someone hasnt killed the cynical youtube critic in their brain <3 also im blocking you

Sometimes a creative outlet is a fun little hobby and sometimes it's a lifelong affliction. Like I crochet because making little woven animals sparks joy and I'm a writer whether I like it or not because I'm tormented by visions

Draw badly. Write nonsensically. Embroider messily. Burn what you bake and cook. Get paint everywhere. Read half a book. Lose your mind for a bit. Plant things. Have faith in the process. Abandon 70 wood-carving projects. Get a kit and do some of it and never return to it. Get comfortable with sucking and losing motivation. Continue to create with reckless abandon.

When you work in a creative field there’s a mental trap you can fall into where you think that if you can’t be the best and most famous in the whole world that there’s no point but really there’s a million ways you can do your thing either as a job or as a hobby that are just as important if not more so than the most famous people in the field

Like. There’s no shame in being a wedding singer. You know what I mean? You don’t have to go to broadway to chase your dreams. You can get hired by local Shakespeare troupe. You can have a little webcomic with a small but loyal fan base.

And I’m not advocating for “settling” or whatever. I’m saying that there’s ways to do what you love for a living or as your main hobby that are smaller and may in fact be what you actually want. Because you may want to just be a local band. You know what I mean? Sometimes that’s the end goal. And even if it isn’t it can still be a way to do what you love.

For anyone who needs it. Use in good health.

I love how different forms of art are all obsessed with each other. A book tries to capture the feeling of music, a painting tries to depict a scene in a book, a song tries to paint a picture. And it's always insufficient. No single form of art can encapsulate another form of art and capture the essence of it – but it tries, and its attempts are impossibly compelling. All the forms of art are in love with each other and spend so much time trying to express what makes the other kinds of art so lovely.

also somwtimes when you dont understand a piece of art it's not bc ur dumb it's bc you havent had the very particular emotional experience that it's trying to invoke in you and you just cant relate. which is also why sometimes you will hear a mountain goats song and say Meh and then you go through some shit and you listen to it again and lose your fucking mind at how real and raw it is. art is how we communicate with each other about experiences that cannot be adequately represented straightforwardly with language. sometimes you have to abstract your representation of the experience in order to truly communicate how big and insane it felt

one thing you won't know until you experience it for yourself when you create art out of love is how it feels when people receive it with love. when you post a doodle and someone keeps it as their lockscreen, or when you write a story and someone tells you they were thinking about it all day, or when you post a poem and someone shares it with a touching caption. doesn't matter if it was objectively good or not. matters that someone spent time with it, that someone really, really liked it, and you made it. this kind of interaction, i think, it can really sustain you for weeks. it can sustain you through a lot of terrible things. its confirmation that you exist, and that (however briefly) your existence was appreciated by someone else through your art.

me: does it always have to be that serious

the part of my brain that controls the imagery, symbolism, and themes department: yes

another important thing to remember is 1) u can pick up any hobby at any point in ur life and get outstandingly good at it & 2) the project u've been working on & aren't pleased w the current outcome so far will not be your last. u will draw/crochet/paint/sculpt/write another piece, and another, and you will have many chances to be fully content w your craft. so you should cherish the joy of making art instead of worrying ab the results & think ab how lovely it is that we're all vessels for artistry and we can share the divine act of creation!!!!!

I think too much advice meant to encourage people to start drawing (or any new thing really) focus too much on improvement, I think it can be helpful for people who are motivated by that but I also think everyone should be allowed to feel good about doing something new even if they never get much better at it or do so verrry slowly. people should be able to just suck at things without any shame as long as they enjoy it. idk I think the act of doing something can be fulfilling by itself even without the promise that you’ll be super great at it eventually

I’m a full believer in doing small things for yourself to cultivate your soul without having to tell anybody especially in a day and age where people feel the need to capitalize on every aspect of themselves to create an aestheticized identity… like learning a language going on a run writing a poem practicing your craft going to a museum dancing for fun can and should give you personal fulfillment that doesn’t have to be presented through a lens or validated by an audience