Creative people tend to subject themselves to something I call introspective-rejection-depression.

Let me explain. People who create stuff, whether it’s writing or art, do not succeed in supporting themselves with their creativity until the product is in front of the audience.

The audience is everyone from your family and friends, who watch you be creative, to the gate-keepers of art/writing, and onward, to the purchaser of your work.

The audience is fickle and judgmental, so are your family and friends, so are you.

This results in you over analyzing everything you do by the meter of what’s going on around and within you. You end up depressed because you also go through the normal routes of life that include mental and physical illness and exhaustion, this can be ‘mid-life crisis’ driven as well.

Creativity is often under appreciated and over ruminated to the point of failing to finish, and can go so far as quitting the process.

I’m going to tell you a few secrets.

Often not knowing any better, and doing things naively, is just as good as perfection.

Creating perfection is a fiction.

Taste, and the audience are fickle.

Critics are your best friends and worst enemies and it’s hard to tell the difference.

Trying something new is a part of the process.

Failure is an option, quitting is an option, success is an option, learn to do all of these things without beating yourself up.