The blood spattered typewriter

If you didn’t get it right away, if you weren’t naturally above average from the very beginning you may have dismissed yourself as without talent and assigned yourself the label ‘not creative’.

After all if you’ve been gifted with divine ability, you don’t need to work hard right?

If the supremely talented painter can effortlessly wave her paint brush however she feels and create a masterpiece there’s no need to break a sweat.

If the talented creatives are people who don’t have to try hard to produce something then we can count out Hemingway and The Beatles then.


“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed”

Ernest Hemingway


“We were going through hell. We often do. It’s torture every time we produce anything. The Beatles haven’t got any magic you haven’t got. We suffer like hell anytime we make anything.”

John Lennon (on making a Beatles album)


‘Bleeding’ and ‘going through hell’ do not depict easy creative processes, in fact it sounds like the complete opposite. It sounds like hard work and perseverance are how these artists create.

So I think if you find creating hard it’s not a sign that you’re not creative, it’s just a sign that you are creating.

After all, Hemingway and the Fab Four, were world famous, at the top of their fields and it sounds like they found it painfully hard.