It’s no simple thing to try and find fulfillment in creative arts, but shouldn’t finding happiness by letting your creativity loose be easy?

The act of creating art of any kind, from a painting, to a performance, to a comic book, should be the easiest thing in the world in many ways. using our imaginations to form something new and exciting is supposed to be one of the most wonderful and uniquely human acts. And — despite a modern culture obsessed with fame, glory, and wealth — creating art is still supposed to something special. Pure? Mysterious? Magical? Something like that.

But I suppose it’s those “mystical” elements of art and creation, especially when combined with our predilection for wanting notoriety or tangible reward for our talents, that can make the drive to create so complicated.

I’m a writer, in some form. I’ve never had a story published or had anyone buy a scrip, but I’ve had some articles published in small newspapers and I once had a short play produced by a small theater company in my home town. I’ve never written a whole novel or a full-length screenplay, but I’ve written numerous short stories, a couple of one-act plays, a handful of comic scripts, and I’ve also turned my creativity toward a number of other endeavours that fall under the umbrella of writing, like collaborative stories, role playing game adventures, and online, prose-based “games”. I also work with words in my day job, writing and editing training courses, marketing materials, technical documents, and other corporate fare.

But despite having a healthy background in the written word, I’ve still struggled with creative writing a lot of the time. In the past, I’ve found myself spending a lot of my time concerned with my audience, or potential audience, far more than my own desires. However, lately I’ve had what I think is an important realization:

I’m never going be be creatively fulfilled by writing to please others. Writing to please myself is the only way forward.

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