Misery > Passion

There’s a myth that art requires passion.

It often crops up as a cringy movie scene. The artist “expresses themselves,” dancing naked across a canvas or hurling themselves at their art, releasing the muse by flailing their arms and waggling their toes and hollering to the heavens.

And behold: Art is made.

Maybe that works for painting.

It doesn’t work for writing.

This is what happens when a writer flails:

‘staeondbkz’stidk:ASTb;bsy’abstbsatk

Writing with passion is like pulling fingernails out of your eyelids: painful and confusing.

But writing with misery wrapped around your throat?

Well, that’s how all the great books were made.