Why do you want to make art? What's in it for you? How will you feel about yourself if you are creatively productive? Do you care more about the product of your creativity or the process? Do you want to have a nice picture to hang on your wall, or do you want to have the feeling that comes from being creative?

Write a paragraph or two about this. It will be a helpful reminder next time you're stuck.

Here's my paragraph (because I’m me, there are three paragraphs)…¦.

Think about your answer. I promise it will be time well spent.

Your pal,

Danny

P.S. After several prodigious polemics, I am challenging myself to be focused and more directly to the point — at least in the next few essays. The Postscript, however, has no rules. I can blather till my index fingers bleed. I can tell you that my desire for brevity was prompted by a reader who told me she rolls her bloodshot eyes whenever I send out my interminable screeds and just archives the essays unread. I can tell you about my conversation with Jenny, who said, stop listening to what randos say to you and do whatever the hell you want. I can tell you that I don’t need to be told that, although I probably do. I can tell you about the ongoing drama of having two dogs in the house, their jockeying for control, and how much room they take up in our King-size bed, even though it’s nice to have fur foot warmers in January, even if they occasionally migrate to pillow level and snore in my face. I can tell you that I have discovered it is okay to drink non-alcoholic beer and that soon I will no doubt start baking gluten-free bread, wearing fragrance-free deodorant, and reading blank books. I can tell you that I recently did a careful analysis of all of the non-blank books I checked out of the library over the past three years and decided I am reading too much cheesy crap, and so I pledged to raise the quality of my consumption by reading classic books and that I have begun with A Farewell to Arms by Ernest H. which is so far (52%) turning out to be surprisingly cheesy, full of unlikely and gauzy love scenes, and quite a lot of battle scenes with guys getting limbs blown off, none of which I remember from Ms. McIlnay’s 10^th grade lit class, and that I will probably move deeper into the canon and find works that will expand my mind and make it easier to fall asleep back asleep at 3 am. I can tell you such stuff safely, here below the fold, knowing that if you are still reading this you are probably okay with my prattling, and we are still pals. Now, write that paragraph.