• Am I Writing to Find Myself or to Prove I Exist?

    Am I Writing to Find Myself or to Prove I Exist?

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    What does it mean to write? As a poet, a writer, a student, a woman — well, honestly, I don’t know. I simply and physically cannot answer that question. Writing to me feels like the one thing I can never quite own, constantly slipping through my fingers like the sticky slime I used to construct…

  • Why perfectionism is killing your creativity

    Why perfectionism is killing your creativity

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    Creativity is not a state of achieved perfection; it’s a willingness to dialogue with chaos, to dance on the edges of the abyss of “I don’t know”. When I was 11 years old, I wrote a poem about Brazilian folklore legends for a Portuguese class. When it was time to hand out the assignments, my…

  • Does Pain Make Great Art? Challenging the Starving Artist Trope

    Does Pain Make Great Art? Challenging the Starving Artist Trope

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    We’ve all heard the stories—Van Gogh cutting off his ear, Sylvia Plath’s tragic end, the countless artists who struggled with hardships and emotional disturbances which led them to create timeless masterpieces. The stereotype that suffering fuels creativity has been around for centuries. But is it really true, or just another harmful romanticized myth? The Problem with the…