Some of what I see in the writer sphere online and the art sphere too is really weird to me. There are articles and books that are titled “I wrote every day for a year. Here’s what I learned.” Or “I painted every day for a month. Is it beneficial?”
Creative things should be done out of passion. If you want to be a writer or an artist or a composer or a dancer or practically any other kind of creative, you should be creating every day with maybe just an occasional sick day if you need it. I don’t have to tell myself to go on challenges where I create every day for a month or a year because I do that naturally. And it’s not just because I’m at home and I have time. When I was younger and I was in college and working I would write poems on the back of receipt paper at my register. One of the poems I wrote went on to get published in the Yale Journal of Humanities in Medicine. Ever since I found out I loved writing, I have been writing. My art obsession has been building year after year. I need no encouragement.
If you want to be a composer, there’s only one way to do it. You must sit down and write music. If you want to be a poet there is only one way to do it. You must sit down and write poetry. And if you want to be a dancer or an artist, guess what?You’ve got to dance or you have to paint.
I used to hesitate to refer to myself as a poet or an artist because I don’t make a living off of either, and I’ve only been to school for one. But at the end of the day, a poet is simply somebody who writes poetry and an artist to simply someone who makes art. If you want to know if I or anyone else is making a living off it that’s a separate issue and a separate question. Whether you’ve been formally trained or not and whether you make a living off of what you create or not, you are what you do.
And that’s true for everyone, not just creative people. You judge a tree by its fruit.
Life at Home 