# The Creative Mind

That’s what “write what you know” really means. It means you should take a feeling, or a unique experience you’ve lived through—something that is quintessentially you—and put it on the page.

I was creating something so this skin could move through the world like a phantom. Something that would protect me as I hid beneath the surface of whatever I’ve become.

Writer’s lives are not clickbait, and they are not a work of fiction to be dramatized for effect.

Drawing didn’t heal me. Risk taking did.

I think, for the first time, I bled in the Goldilocks Zone.

Sadness is inherent to every seed. When the flowers come, they'll be for graves or grace. No one knows.

In proportion to every dolphin that she earned as a pet in Roblox, she produced one less poem, song, or picture in real life.

Do you give yourself "the talk"—that you're wasting your time, that you'll never be good enough, that your script will embarrass you, that you'll disappoint the people who read it?

Having a psychologist in the family, I've long been aware of the tremendous impact one's environment has on everything from morale and mental wellbeing to the quality of one's work.

... there is nothing more cruel than spending an eternity subjected to never-ending positivity.

My mentality was "I’m a fucking great writer," though I had no proof of that. That was my first mistake.

Francesca Brigandy’s synesthesia allows her to visualize sounds as colors when listening to music, giving her a unique polychrome perspective.

Nothing is certain, so why not take the risk and be as bold or unusual or as personal as we want to be in whatever we are creating?

This article is long overdue in so many ways both literal and metaphorical, but it’s here now so shut your figgy pudding hole and enjoy this airing of grievances.

It’s scary to walk on the mat for the first time against an opponent taller and larger than you. And it’s scary to show people a story you’ve been obsessed with for weeks, months, and years on end.