YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE BLEEDING TO WRITE ABOUT THE WOUND
“Do you think that it kind of plays into the myth of art and suffering and how they have to exist side by side?” — Taylor Swift
I watched a Taylor Swift interview (as you do), Variety’s Directors on Directors with Martin McDonagh, and I’m writing this now because I don’t want the idea to leave me. It made me introspect. I had to catch it while it was still warm.
Taylor brought up that question above. And it’s like asking:
Do artists need to suffer in order to create something about suffering?
Depends, right?
I’ve written things in the thick of heartbreak and pain. And looking back, it’s obvious: I was still in it. That’s when art comes out raw, soulful, visceral. Beautiful in its immediacy.
But here’s what I’ve come to understand now:
- You don’t have to bleed to talk about your wound.
- You don’t have to stay in the dark to shed light on the dark.
- You don’t have to be in pain to honor painful experiences.
As creatives, time is the great separator. You have to grow through it. Pull yourself out of the deep hole before you can truly look back and internalize the story underneath the struggle.
Some things you write in the moment, and that’s powerful. But only with distance do you really get to the heart of the story.
Back to Taylor, she said that when she wrote All Too Well many years ago, she was so deep in the pain, she couldn’t have directed a short film about it. It was too raw. Too much.
Here’s what she actually said:
“Emotionally, I was just kind of… I was going through exactly what the short film depicts. And I think that time is such an incredible asset to us when we have these stories that are hard to tell in the moment, because it's good if a story is hard to tell. That means it's incredibly emotionally potent. But it's impossible to tell it with perspective and truth if you're in it sometimes...sometimes that amount of intensity can be actually stifling.”
Martin agreed. He said he’s a pretty happy person, but some of his work still comes from sadness, just not current sadness. The feeling lingers, but the suffering doesn’t have to.
And I thought, yes. That’s it.
These days, when I write about heartbreak or grief, people tell me they feel it. They connect. They cry reading it.
But I’m not crying as I write.
I’m not shattered anymore.
I’ve grown.
I’ve lived through it.
The emotion is still true... but so is the healing.
When I was really hurting, most of the time, I didn’t write about it. I escaped it. I built fantasy worlds. Created other lives. I couldn’t bear the one I was living in.
It’s only now, with space and healing, that I can look back and write about it with honesty. I can shape the story, trace the arc, find the meaning...without being crushed by the weight of it.
You don’t have to be broken to write about being broken. You don’t have to keep hurting to make something that heals.
You grow with your pain. You transform it.
And the art you make from the other side? That’s a testament to your survival.
I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about these things more lately. I wasn’t even sure I’d send this, but I’m sending it anyway.
Because sometimes, catching the thought before it flies away...
That’s the art too.
Stay soulful,
Jopaz