I do, most of the time. I’ve always felt creative, I always have thousands of ideas and concepts for anything, be it a drawing, a song or a text of any kind, but regardless of what it is, anytime I sit down and try to make something I hate it, I hate it so deeply it disgusts me and kills any will to continue whatever it is I’m doing.
I tried to write some lyrics some days ago, it felt okay-ish until I wnt back and read it, at which point it feelt as if I was seeing someone else in the mirror: all the things, the ideas, the feelings I thought I put in it just aren’t there. It feels hollow, alien, repulsive.
I know I can’t be good as a beginner, but I’ve been a beginner in everything since I was a kid. And I kept trying and trying and trying, and every time I felt that feeling of disgust and repulsion, outrage even. I just can’t stand it anymore, and maybe “art”, or rather artistic self-expression, isn’t my thing? Maybe I keep trying to open a door that simply isn’t the one I’m supposed to open?
Did you ever feel this way and overcame it? I don’t even care about making whatever I make public, I just want to feel as if I gave shape to something I thought or felt.
There’s also a fun little cheat I’ll do when I’m frustrated trying to create something. I’ll try to ape someone else’s style. See how close I can get to creating an original piece (for me it’s writing and music) that is completely in another artist’s voice. It instantly takes the pressure off because it’s more like an exercise but keeps me interested enough to finish it and see how close I can get.
I always learn a few things; new techniques I might have never tried or discovered on my own, finding my own unavoidable fingerprint in the end result (no matter how good the imitation) is a clue to what I sound like and almost every time it makes me want to do my own very different new thing.