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.