15 Reminders For When You’re Feeling Discouraged in Your Art

With my final class project finishing up on Sunday, and I finally getting my clean house back after a week of sickness, an ER visit (on my husband’s end - he’s okay now), and waking up at 3 am to get him soup, I am now a much less overwhelmed person. I did have a post written last week: I listed out 30-something October themed art and writing challenges. But for the above reasons, that didn’t go out and it’s now mid-October. We’ll try again next year.

Instead, this week I just want to write something simple to get back in the groove of things. This is blog post #16, which means they have been going out for over 3 months now. I don’t have any new awe-inspiring news or information today. What I do have, however, is a record of past awe-inspiring news and information. I’ve looked through each topic from the past 3 months, and condensed them into a list of easy-to-digest, one sentence inspirational “tokens” that you can take with you as you go through your writing journey. So here are 15 mini-thoughts for you:

1. Write about your writers block to get through it.
2. You’re allowed to write, even if you don’t read that much.
3. You are preserving art when you make it and keep it.
4. Your artwork is not going to look like the exact inspiration you drew it from; it’s going to look like a lifetime of personal experiences.
5. The only way you are going to get better is through trial and error.
6. It is completely normal for it to take multiple years to get your art/writing of the ground.
7. Being bored means your brain has enough space and want-to to create something new.
8. Follow your artistic whims, regardless of genre.
9. You’re allowed to discontinue a project that you no longer find as fun as you used to.
10. You’re allowed to be bad at something when you’re just there to have fun with it.
11. Good poetry writing is an achievable skill with practice and technique.
12. You are completely capable of sharing your art, and growing with it - you just have to do it.
13. Some ideas just simply need time to develop.
14. Quiet time, spontaneity, editing, and mint-chocolate chip ice cream: all good things.
15. When you can’t balance your work-load, step back or find some help.

These are all things I tell myself regularly to keep pushing forward. I hope that at least one of those is helpful as you continue to write and create. It can get discouraging sometimes, but in those times it’s nice to remember that there is usually a way through it.

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