For the Artist Who Didn’t Create Anything in 2020

You were never Shakespeare or Bach, and that’s okay.

Outside of Medium, I am a full-time freelance writer working on a novel that I am planning on querying. If you’ve read any of my stories or follow me, you know that I turn out stories and content really fast.

It’s just sorta in my nature. I’m one of those publish or perish people.

Which is why I want to tell all the people out there who didn’t create anything new or anything at all during this awful not so great year that you are still an artist, a creative–a work of art.

Those two paragraphs might seem at odds with some people, but let me start where my pandemic began.

At the beginning of 2020 right when my state went into its first lock-down, like many freelancers, I lost a majority of my income and gigs because as other industries went under, so did my clients. So I scrambled to get a steady paying job in communications—something I’m good at and an essential job in my state.

Well, I got what I wanted: a nice, remote office job at a local nonprofit in my area. After about two months, racism pushed me back into the freelance grind unexpectedly. Even though I was sitting on enough savings to keep me fed and alright for a bit, I couldn’t focus on my book.

Not only were protests beginning to happen over George Floyd's murder, but my only close encounters with racism and job insecurity made it feel like no matter what, I would never be allowed to live, to breathe, to create as a Black woman.

Then there were all these posts going around about how Covid and the pandemic had brought about the one thing all creatives and artists crave—space and time to create. They proposed that we artists must be in heaven with the state of the world.

But no one it seemed saw how much pain and sorrow was also surrounding us also. I’m one of those people that believes artists are sensitive folks. We perceive the world on many different levels and can feel things in a different way that tends to lean toward the introspective.

So oftentimes during create periods of stress we won’t create because we are essentially emotionally unavailable to create or we create nonstop to get out all the feelings associated with such turmoil and strife.

What we can not do, is turn it on and off like a switch. We can and do strive to cultivate a practice that works for us and produces work that we are proud of, but sometimes that doesn’t cut it. And we have to be okay with that. It’s the delicate life of the artist.

If you’re an artist, whether out of the closet or not, you saw those posts way back in March about how great periods of turmoil brew masterworks. Or some nonsense like that.

It was akin to saying you must suffer to create. Or that the suffering people were going through was okay because you were creating. And I’m sure for a second you agreed with them Believed that this was the year and the time for you to conquer that masterpiece.

That wave of ‘trauma inspiration’ wasn’t good. It caused more false starts and pressure than anything else.

We live in an ableist, capitalist, racist, and sexist society that is constantly rewarding people for suffering well enough to turn a profit or to make something. But this does more harm than anything.

Just like the issues in our society that led to that collective trend, all those tweets and messages and posts and memes and videos and articles were just as harmful.

More and more artists pulled away from social media and from creating because the noise of it all got to loud. It wasn’t the noise of Covid or the election or the brutality of our collective police state, but the sound of people losing sight.

I have even begun pulling away from social media and instead engaging with people in my email subscriber lists, close circles, and on this platform. That has been the biggest thing to help me start creating again, remembering community.

Pain doesn’t lead to the creation of great art but the artist’s reflection and expression of that pain opens pathways to new and original works.

Before the lock-down, it was okay to sit on your draft or project until the inspiration sparked. Once things began shutting down and more time freed up, that was no longer the case.

You must create now, now, now became the new ticking clock in all artists’ heads. Family members and friends who never usually ask about your work started sliding into your DMs with their quips about how this time must be great for your work.

At the beginning of the pandemic, Jeff VanderMeer, author of Annihilation and a friend on Facebook, put out a status that let people know anyone who asked or said anything along the lines of the pandemic being great for his type of work would be meet with a quick fuck you and block.

Paraphrased, of course.

This type of mentality speaks to me deeply. If someone can truly look at the state of the world in 2020 and say,

“Yes, all this pain does wonders for my art,”

then they probably aren’t an artist, but a capitalist. They don’t see or feel that pain ripping apart their community. Instead, they see what they can gain from it.

And I know, I know, we’re all capitalists in a capitalist society, but there is a fine line between Mark Zuckerburg and Mark from Walgreens.

Pressure to pick up the brush or pad is nothing more then added weight and not inspiration, especially when coupled with what has happened in 2020. On top of murders and school shut downs, artists are expected to take this complicated and bloody mess of a year and turn it into a groundbreaking work of staggering genius?

No.

No artist should ever be expected to do that.

We exist in a liminal space where at any moment we can lose sight of reality and fall into pure fantasy—sometimes good and sometimes bad. Deadlines and market concerns are one thing to deal with, throw in a global crisis that turns everyone into vulnerable populations, and it’s a miracle if any work of art comes out at all.

For the artists who have created work, are still creating work, and never stopped creating because that was what filled your heart and wallet, I don’t want you to think that this article is against you and your work. On the contrary.

I think you too have the right, if not the privilege, to stop creating and simply rest. Do something for no reason just to make yourself feel better. Write that story that you know won’t sell or don’t write anything at all.

Yes.

Yes you can create now and share what you are doing. Don’t shut the joy out but let it overcome you and those around you. These are dark times we are still very much so in.

What I’m saying is don’t let the pressure to create now stop you from creating in the future.

Being an artist isn’t about the frequency of creation but the intention and cultivation of soul.

On my end, the book is coming along but much slower than I ever anticipated. I’m still creating. Even if I wasn’t, I’d still be an artist.

Just one in repose.

Aigner Loren Wilson is a queer Black SFWA, HWA, and Codex writer. Her work has appeared in Arsenika, Terraform, Rue Morgue, and more. She was listed on the honors list for the Otherwise Fellowship award for 2019. She also writes or edits for Strange Horizons, Nightlight Horror Podcast, Oly Arts, Discover Pods, and more. She offers a writing craft newsletter to people who want to become better writers and publish quality pieces.