One of the sayings which has genuinely haunted me for years is ‘wherever you go, there you are’, and this is unbelievably true when it comes to your art. This post brought up the feelings again, and I figured that I’d try to articulate some of them—following my theme of writing more openly and frequently.

The beauty of creating my stories, writing poems, or dreaming of making songs is that I get to write them exactly how I want them to be! I can include my favourite elements of inspiration, and no one can say ‘that’s not how its meant to be!!!’ I love this aspect of the creative process, and my freedom to express things, in all their beauty and amateur passion.

But! There will always be a little frustration to the fact that it was me who wrote it, because in a sense, I always knew that it turned out that way. Of all the possible ways a story might end, I chose this one, and maybe there will be a day when I’ll look back and wish I chose a different one. Or maybe, I’ll forget something, and look back later, only to realise I’ve left out a key idea. Or I’ll come up with a new plan, which is so much better than my originally intended work, and I’ll regret it all anyway. These questions add a whole new layer of pressure to the work, and make it really hard to continue sometimes.

After all, if I want to be a full-time author, I have to publish books. But if I publish books, they are immortalised as they are, leaving no room to revise or fix issues if they arise. Maybe I’m just overthinking, but I do still struggle with that.

As an artist and a person, I believe the only constant in life is change—for better and for worse. I love it, and I enjoy the constant process of evolution. I like the fact that I can learn so much each and every day, from the people around me, the books I read, and the world at large. It’s exciting, and fun, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I just have to remember that change often happens around art, not to it or within it. The published manuscript, the revealed painting, the promoted song all become fixed, while the world moves on, reacting to and with the finished product. It’s what makes art so important, as a fixed point we can refer back to with our changing opinions.

It’s funny how I can find myself in these spirals, but at least now I know there is only one solution: act.

I cannot stop writing, and I don’t want to either. I love my stories and characters too much to let them die in my throat or my fingertips, so I will keep putting them together. Bit by painstaking bit, I hope to craft these stories with all the care and dedication I need to create interesting, powerful works. And I hope that I will be able to publish them happily and graciously, knowing that they are the best I could make in that moment, and will always be whatever they needed to be at the time. And of course, with the knowledge that I will grow beyond that ability because that is the point!

What an exciting prospect to look back on these works in a ten, twenty-five, or fifty years (God imagine!), and see all the choices I made through wiser eyes. I can only hope I am making that old woman proud.