artist, so confusing

trying to work it out on the remix with my creativity in real time

It’s Monday morning and you can’t get up

When your degree is staring daggers from the wall

And somewhere sunk inside your heart

There is a teensy, tiny part of you that sure could use some coffee

— “Building The Ark” by Slaughter Beach, Dog

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Frances Ha (2012)

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To be an artist is to care way too much. That might be a generalization, but in my experience, and from how I understand my fellow artists to feel and perceive the world, it’s true. Regardless of the form an artist’s work takes on—there is so much of ourselves that goes into creating a piece, and then again when we make another piece, and then again…and again. And it never ends. 

I often get asked how I write my songs or how I go about writing my essays, but my honest truth is that I don’t actually know how to make myself do either of those things without feeling something way too strongly in the moment or without having something particularly emotionally instigating actively happen to me. The entire reason I even write at all isn’t just so I can be that pretentious person at dinner parties to say, “Oh, I’m a writer,” in all its vague, mysterious glory. Not so I can say, “Oh, I make music”—just specific enough for you to know what I do, but not quite detailed enough for you to know what I do. The reason behind why I write is because I am feeling too much of something, so much, that I need to put it somewhere else, and most often, those containers happen to take the shapes of songs, essays, or journal entries. I write to extract something intangible from inside of me, so that I can make it tangible and try to understand it. At least, it’s my decrepit attempt at doing so. It also never happens in one go—which is why I can have so many songs and so many essays about one singular situation. Each song, each essay feels like inching closer to the wrapping my head around something that happened. But somehow, with each piece I write, the finish line itself moves a little further away. So I’m making progress, yes, but there’s not exactly a concrete end in sight. 

I feel like a fake writer sometimes because I can’t exactly write something great on command. Sure, I can perform the act of writing on command, but whether or not it’ll be something I’m truly proud of is another story. I can’t just snap my fingers and write a good song or an essay worth reading—or at least, I feel that way. Maybe I can actually write something good on a whim and I’m just being hard on myself because of my limited perception, but I think that this trait is exactly why I have the tendency to go on unannounced, unexpected hiatuses when it comes to creative productivity. When life feels stagnant and nothing is especially inspiring, I try to let myself live and experience things so that I can have something to write about. But it’s far too easy to let the guilt settle in, because during that time of experiencing and living and gathering material, nothing is really being made and put out, and I feel like lazy version of myself for doing so—because of the lack of doing at all. 2022 was a particularly big year for me in terms of living, which is why I didn’t release any music in 2022 besides a collaboration until December (my song ‘company’)—and on the second to last day of the year at that. 

Songwriting was always something that felt like a constant to me—not necessarily the process and act of releasing music, but the art of songwriting—and it still does. I can say with full confidence that there hasn’t been a single week that has passed since I was about nine years old where I haven’t written at least a fragment of a song. Writing in general has always been there, but songwriting specifically has been my primary creative and emotional outlet for over a decade. But in the past few years, as I started becoming more and more familiar with the music industry—especially the people in it, specifically fellow songwriters and musicians who were either pursuing it full-time or just really good at knowing what the career entails—I realized there was a lot more to the process of making a song than what I was used to. All of it was so daunting and intimidating, that it made me feel like I was falling behind in the creative pursuit I thought I was already pretty good at. 

One of the main things that scared me the most was doing live songwriting sessions with other people, because even after being a songwriter for over a decade, I had only ever written songs alone or via voice memo exchanges with close songwriter friends. Thankfully, this year, I actually forced myself to conquer that fear over the summer (everybody cheered), but prior to that, I had only ever sent my fellow songwriter friends—and only the ones I trusted with my life—memos of unfinished songs I’d written for them to complete, if they so desired, on their own time. Prior to this summer, I had been deathly afraid of sitting there with another person and actively engaging in an artistic process that is actually very personal and sacred to me. And this isn’t me assuming that it’s not a personal and sacred thing for the other person, because I’m sure it is, it’s just that they seem to be more skilled at breaking down that barrier and opening up that part of themselves—or even channeling another state of mind so that it’s less awkward—than I am. My anxiety around writing with others mainly stems from the fact that it forces me to be creatively vulnerable. As a chronic oversharer, I actually have no issues with being honest with others, so the issue never really lied in having to be honest with another person. I never thought I would be intensely judged either, I was just afraid of sounding stupid.

Quick story time. When I turned eighteen, I wanted to go to Disneyland for my birthday as an ironic joke. I wanted to spend my first days as an adult acting like a child, by going to the place that might ignite the most childlike energy within me possible. My favorite ride growing up was Space Mountain by a landslide—for anyone who doesn’t know, it’s essentially an outer space-themed rollercoaster simulating a rocket ship blasting through the galaxies. The entire thing is basically in the dark and most of the thrill stems from the unknown—because you can’t see the tracks, you never know when you’re going to drop or what direction you’re going in next. And when we went on it that trip, it actually broke down midway through the ride. They had to turn all the lights on to fix it, and I got to see what Space Mountain actually looked like for what it was, and I’m a generally optimistic person, so I didn’t let that kill the magic too much. But like I said, a lot of the thrill and draw toward that ride stems from the unknown. This is all relevant, I promise. 

When it came to songwriting, I was afraid that I was Space Mountain. I’m still kind of afraid that I’m Space Mountain. And what I mean by that, is often times when I’m writing a song, a line can go through a million different word or rhyme variations before I settle on a good one, the chord progression can take forever before I even like it, and don’t even get me started on finding a good melody. I think I was scared that my songs would be less impressive if people knew exactly how my process went, and worried that a lot of my ‘wow factor’ stemmed from the fact that I wrote all my songs by myself and no one knew exactly how I did it. One of my biggest ‘things’ is that I don’t really like showing people works in progress—even if I actually give the disclaimer that it’s a work in progress. There are only a handful of people I trust completely with showing my early stage and/or unfinished songs to (if you’re reading this, you know who you are). But before this summer, I was terrified that I was only good at songwriting because of the fact that I did it alone. It was already so difficult for me to be honest with myself in private, so I had a lot of anxiety surrounding how much harder it would be for me to do that with someone else—even someone I felt close to, trusted, and was comfortable with.

That ever-persistent, ever-diligent feeling of falling behind and being a fraud is also why I can take such long breaks in between consistently publishing essays or other long-form content. I often feel like a child playing pretend when I hear my own voice introducing myself to other people as a writer, because when I do, there are a couple specific questions that float around my head—well, I suppose it’s not exactly a verbalized asking, but more so a panging inside my chest triggered by an existential wondering—what have I even written that’s so great? What works have I done to even merit giving myself the title of ‘writer’? 

I’m sure a lot of writers and artists in general can empathize with experiencing imposter syndrome in regard to their own respective artistic mediums. I think it’s something that just comes along with being a creative person. It’s a package deal: you can’t be a creative person and also be fully secure and confident that the art you make is credible enough. And people who seem like exceptions to the rule actually, in reality, aren’t. No matter how many accolades we rack up or how many pieces we create, to ourselves, it’s never going to feel like we’re doing enough, because it never truly is—but I don’t think that necessarily has to be a negative thing. I actually think that these feelings of inadequacy stem from the fact that as creatives, in a way, we are sort of the human equivalent of a bottomless pit when it comes to artistic endeavors. We’re always brainstorming, always creating, always writing, always making something. How can the work we actually have finished ever feel like enough, if we always feel like there is more to be made?

But I think there is something so beautiful about that. Just think about it: there is always more to be made. The music will never stop playing; the words will never stop coming, the pens will never stop sketching; the brushes never stop painting; the pictures will never stop being taken—the pain, the messiness, and the ideas will never stop. But neither will all the beauty, joy, laughter, and pride we feel in the art we create. It never ends.

So, yes—to be an artist is to care way too much. But that’s fine. 

There is always more to be made.

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