Being a writer, or any type of creative, can seem like a peculiar thing. Those on the outside watching don’t always understand, and we ourselves experience such a rollercoaster of joys and struggles in this particular way of life we’ve shaped for ourselves.

Thomas Mann said:

“A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.”

That quote has rung with me for years.

When we know the rules and spend so much time doing something, it far too quickly falls into being a chore. Those glorious days of madly typing or scribbling in our colorful notebooks, with no idea how to use proper dialogue tags and clueless to the concepts of showing vs. telling or character motivation or opening with strong hooks, back when it was just you and your imagination and reckless abandon…those days fade. That inner editor digs into your mind and makes you question every paragraph, every word.

Being a writer is staring at a blank page with the overwhelming sense of entire worlds crowded within you and no coherent way to get it all out. Or needing to get something out but a mind as blank as the white screen with the blinking cursor before you.

Being a writer is spending hours upon hours creating content for social media to maybe get a few likes and one new follower.

Being a writer is stale coffee and late nights and scraping at the bottom of the far-too-dry creative barrel of your mind for something, for anything but you’re just so tired.

Being a writer is feeling guilty every waking second when you’re not writing.

Being a writer is often feeling alone and misunderstood.

Being a writer is questioning, questioning, questioning. Why do you do this? Are you wasting your time? Wouldn’t life be simpler if you didn’t spend practically every free minute telling stories and building a platform and instead just go get some sort of “normal” life? Is the stress and constant state of exhaustion worth it?

And then…

…then one day you find a message in your inbox or DMs from a reader or beta-reader, and they tell you how your words moved them. They share how they were struggling with something similar to your protagonist and it helped them overcome. Or they simply exclaim over a line that made them laugh, a line maybe you just tossed there without much thought or spent an hour mulling and stressing over but it meant something to them. It made someone out there feel. It gave them a smile on a hard day.

…then someone comments on one of your posts saying that is exactly what they needed to hear, and it doesn’t matter if the post doesn’t get a lot of likes, because it reached one soul who truly needed it.

…then you pick up your own older works and see, hey, this isn’t so bad. In fact, it ignites a fire in you as you realize how much this story of yours means to you personally. As the little gems spill out and the themes resonate because they came from your heart. Your experiences. Your own struggles. It was the story you needed to feel. The story only you could ever tell.

…then you find someone out there so much like you and realize you aren’t alone—there is an enormous community of people just like you with the same struggles and joys and you grow with them and if you hadn’t become a creative you’d never know these wonderful people.

…then you’re trying to sleep and a little plot bunny burrows in your head and next thing you know you’re spending the next few weeks wildly making playlists and pinterest boards and aesthetics and scribbling the ideas that are coming so fast you can barely get them down quickly enough and every part of this story from the characters to the concepts to the themes fills every inch of you with joy, with unbridled excitement, and you know you’ll never be happy unless you get to explore it.

And you realize you could never give it up. Not ever.

We are given this one life on this earth. Just one. And yes, so many times I wonder why I spend such an absurd amount of it doing things like writing blog posts and IG captions and working on stories that may never get the chance to see the light of day, when it would be so, so easy to give it all up and have more free time with far less stress.

But I don’t want to stop. I can’t.

When I go long periods without creating, that longing inside me tugs deeper and harder until I’m near bursting with story. I find I miss social media and all the beautiful, passionate friends I’ve made through it. I find words inside me burning to get out. And I think if I ever stopped, they’d burn me alive.

The stress and the hard days and the pulling words out of your brain like teeth—it’s worth it. Because there is a passion inside you, a blazing fire for STORY. For creating. You are the very image of the Creator Himself. That yearning inside you to make beautiful things, to make meaningful or funny or sad or fluffy or deep or all of the above things, it comes from Him. To make. To fill the world with wonder.

The world needs art.

Art pieces, music, books, TV shows and movies, even video games—they’ve been vital tools for shaping me. They’ve helped me understand my emotions, helped me learn how to overcome struggles, inspired me to rise above the darkness and always choose the light, brought an infinite amount of comfort during hard, lonely days, made me laugh and cry and feel so much love.

And I know all of those things took work. I am sure the creators of them had many days they questioned their life choices and were tempted to give up. But if they had, I may not be who I am today. There could be hundreds, thousands, even millions of people who wouldn’t have experienced their art and been moved and changed by it.

What if the apostle Paul decided it was not worth the time to write? Bloodied from beatings and alone in a hard, uncomfortable prison, no one would have blamed him if he had chosen not to. But he did it anyway. He poured out the words laid on his heart, and through him we have the very words of God, the key to Eternity, for all the generations since.

Being a creative is exhausting. Sometimes we absolutely do need to step away and have quiet seasons. Sometimes the words just won’t come and we have to experience life and soak in other people’s art to break apart the dam and find that flow again. Sometimes we can’t keep up with it all, and that is entirely okay. We are not machines, nor should we ever, ever treat ourselves as such.

But that’s the beauty of it. You aren’t a machine. You’re a living, breathing, beautiful human created from the image of God with things only YOU could ever produce. The art you make is leaving your unique fingerprint on this earth that can touch hearts always, and there are people out there who need it. Including you.

So when the questions come and the dry seasons drain you and the doubts pound and batter at your mind and heart like a rockfall, remember what being a creative is.

It is messy and chaotic and hard and sleep-deprived days scraping at the dregs of the creative well and others of fevered motivation and inspired scribbles and beautiful things coming to life.

And its worth it. Because the Ultimate Creator wants to co-create with you and has laid wonderful things in your heart that only your fingers can produce.

Don’t give up, my friends. The worlds needs your art.

What does being a creative mean to you? What is your biggest struggle vs. greatest joy in this kind of lifestyle?