Guilty

What do you do when you’re jealous of your own characters?

To me, it’s the equivalent of the flashing red light and that horrific blaring noise used in fire alarms – in other words, you are in a very dangerous place right now, and if you don’t evacuate immediately you are going to die, or at the very least cause some serious damage.

See, it’s a delicate balance being a writer, or any kind of artist, really. It’s our passion that allows us to create vivid worlds that touch other people, but it’s that same passion that can destroy us. What if you’re so focused on creating new worlds that you’re not really “living” in the one you’re in? I daydream. A lot. And from what I’ve heard of other creative type B personalities, it’s fairly common. A lot of my art and writing ideas come from daydreaming. At the same time, I’ve been told that I come off as guarded or standoffish to other people, which was a complete surprise to me, but that eventually made sense when I realized that 99.9% of the time, I’m too busy wishing I was somewhere or someone else to be invested in what’s going on around me.

It makes me think that my personality makes me more likely to be an above average writer and painter but less able to connect with the people who enjoy my writing or painting. But that’s not something easily remedied… so it feels a little like smashing my head against a brick wall right now. I will say this, though – when I doing creative things, it makes me happy.

It seems that creativity tends to be linked with introversion to some degree. Correlation does not equal causation, but it makes me wonder: if you had to choose between being a creative genius or a social butterfly, which would be more important to you?

Most of the time, I think art is more important.

Sometimes… not so much.