an ode to the young, impatient artist

from the young, impatient artist

i’m so troubled by the fact that i’m not constantly creating.

honestly, i don’t even think this pressure comes from society—i think it comes from myself. well, maybe society a bit, but i can’t really blame society for everything. but whenever i sit down at my laptop or my typewriter or even pick up a piece of paper and pen, in the back of my mind i’m thinking, “i’m going to submit this to a literary magazine to be published so i can keep building my portfolio. this has to be publishable quality.” i think this mindset has me writing a lot less than i’d like to, despite thinking it would have such an opposite affect.

i also feel guilty for how much media i consume and how often. i have already watched 36 movies this year (yet i scolded myself for only watching 36 the other day? make up your mind, liv! too little or too much?!) and i have loved each and every one of them so dearly—each one has resonated with me in such a different way and i somehow manage to simultaneously be obsessed with them all (some recent favorites which i highly recommend: love lies bleeding, garden state, detachment, half nelson, the professor, and good will hunting) but whenever i put a movie into my dvd player or crack open a book, i think to myself: “i should be writing the next hit screenplay or novel right now. i could be using this time to do so.” i also know that i can’t do that without consuming and enjoying existing media—but where is the line to be drawn, really? ideas are always ruminating in my head and i say that i’m going to write them and either i never do, or i start to and then that project is quickly abandoned. and there is far too much pressure that i admit i’m putting on myself to be successful at 19 years old. but in the writing world, i have to remember that so many great writers didn’t even start publishing until they were in their 30’s at the earliest (jane austen didn’t publish sense and sensibility until she was 35 years old, and now she is one of the most beloved authors to this day, and i imagine she will be forever—hell, bram stoker didn’t even start writing dracula until he was 50!), some works weren’t even published in their lifetime (here’s looking at you, kafka! thank you max brod for taking it upon yourself to see to it that the world could experience the worlds he created), and some people didn’t even expect their novels to reach anyone in the ways that they did (jd salinger didn’t expect people to praise the catcher in the rye, nor did he really like that they did? how?!). i’m sitting here and writing these reassurances to myself and to my fellow writer friends and colleagues, but they don’t really fully soak in. i know all this to be true, but it doesn’t change the fact that i want to get my voice out there.

proof that i’ve watched 36 films this year (and perhaps a shameless self promo for my letterboxd, my dream is to be letterboxd famous please help me make this happen!), and i swear i’ve seen more than 118 films in my lifetime. these are just the ones i’ve been logging since 2021 and honestly, i didn’t start consistently logging until late 2022.

but i know i don’t need to be a bestselling author to accomplish that. this platform, even, has meant the world to me to cultivate—it has brought me so much love, community, joy, and alleviated so many of the pressures i’ve put onto myself. there isn’t a single piece of writing in this collection that i’m not proud of—isn’t that incredible? what a rare occurrence that is. i shouldn’t take that for granted. and to be known by the people that i want to know me the most is such a gift—i would rather be known and loved and understood by my closest friends than by a million people i will never truly know. but i can’t help but daydream about seeing my name on the cover of a book, residing on the bookshelf of varying bookstores! i can’t help but imagine being at one of those bookstores one day and seeing someone pick up my book with interest and then going to buy it. i don’t think it would crush me if they put it back—i’m not for everyone! i know that, and i know it isn’t personal. there are so many beloved writers that i will probably never give the time of day because i don’t feel a connection to them—and that’s okay, despite what some of the more experienced people in the literature industry would have us believing.

so much of the advice i’ve gotten from these more experienced writers and my professors is that i have all these stories to tell, but living and experience will give me the gift of learning how to string these stories together. i know this, but i am so impatient! i also sometimes worry that the best stories have already been told—but then if this were true, why are films and books constantly being released? why am i so often finding recent releases to love? besides, no one has, nor will tell the stories i have in my soul and mind and heart, no one else has my unique voice, writing style, quirks, all of that. the world is waiting patiently for me, even if not the most patient in going about giving the world what they’re waiting for. i have it all deep within me—i’m just dying for it to be created.

it also doesn’t help that i’m a perfectionist. having more than one final draft? never heard of that! i know i need to break free from that habit, to stop polishing everything so finely as i go along (it always slows me down, frustrates me, and only inspires me to drop the work altogether) and just write down what i have to say and tweak it later. it’s so easy to know of the things that will make your life and creative process so much easier and better, but it’s not so easy to actually do these things. that’s the lifelong dilemma, is it not? and what a dilemma to have—so, so frustrating. i have no further words of wisdom on such a widely experienced notion.

so, my fellow young writers—i encourage us all, myself included, to take more walks. to wander to places we’ve never been—to get in our cars, or on the train, or on the bus, or on our bikes, or on our feet and find ourselves somewhere that’s new to us but familiar to many others. to sit down on the grass and watch people pass by, to innocently eavesdrop on conversations unfolding around you—if they didn’t want anyone else to hear, they wouldn’t be speaking of it in public, right? to relieve ourselves of the pressure to be adolescent/young adult prodigies. to know that we have so many stories within us that will rise to the surface when they’re ready to be told. to take every single opportunity to travel that we can. to establish creative inner circles to give and receive thoughts and to help each other to brainstorm ideas. to watch as many movies and shows you can, to listen to as much music and to go to as many concerts as you can, to read as many books as you can and to be inspired by all this media. to scribble down every single idea you have, big or small (yes, carry a journal and a pen with you wherever you go! abandon the notes app unless you know you’d come back to it there). to cry, to love, to laugh, to feel pain, to feel joy, to feel everything in between. to live. read that again. here, i’ll write it again: to live. really, really live.

i wrote in a recent letterboxd review of ‘the professor’, which applies to you all as well: “i don’t need the entire world to know who i am for my life to be worth something—i only need the ones whom i love and who love me most to, well, love me and let me love them.”