“Why This Story, Why Now?” Is The Bane of Creativity
Creativity isn’t capitalism. Write for you, not for the world.
Back in university, I had a film professor whose passion was environmentalism. Though she was kind and well-meaning, she wasn’t profoundly interested in film as an art. She valued it as a vector for poignant storytelling, as fiction used to embellish nonfiction. When my friend and I proposed an idea for a short film about students on campus spontaneously acquiring superpowers, she looked down upon us with disappointment in her eyes.
“You have the power of film at your disposal, and you want to use it for that?” she said.
The words were branded onto my brain matter. I felt embarrassed and ashamed for how excited I’d been for the superhero idea. Still, I couldn’t imagine writing anything else. She suggested we create a nonfiction news piece, and though we were uninspired and crestfallen, my team and I agreed.
Years later, this memory resurfaced. In its new incarnation, it was much louder and much crueler. After dreaming of a career in the publishing industry for so long, I finally felt ready to prop open my laptop and toil away at a first draft. I had a story that poured liquid light through my spirit, and a million ideas for how it could expand. This world, this pocket…
