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​You Should Make Bad Art

When I was a kid, I loved music, movies, art, and books. I read constantly. I listened to music all the time, and I watched movies every night I could. I thought musicians, authors, actors, and movie directors were heroes, and I thought it would be so cool to be one of them.

But I was just a kid in a small town nowhere near New York or Hollywood, and nobody I knew was an artist or a writer or a rapper.

Nobody told me this one thing about all those books and movies and songs. Every one of them started as a little idea in someone's head.

My favorite song: Someone's idea.

My favorite movie: someone's idea.

My favorite book, an idea that came from someone. A normal person with doubts and insecurities just like mine. Maybe on a Tuesday afternoon. Maybe when that person was waiting for the bus or washing the dishes or staring out the window at the falling rain.

Those people had that idea, and then they spent a lot of time—

—hours or days or years—

—working on that idea and turning it into something they could share with other people.

I thought famous people made art, and that they were special.

But a lot of times it's the other way around. Regular people make art and sometimes, not very often, they become famous because of it.

Another thing no one told me: famous art is just one example of art.

There are a million reasons to make art, and getting famous is only one of those reasons. There are a million ways to make art, and a million ways art can recalibrate someone's life. Subtly or abruptly.

That kid who loved books, movies, and music, me, eventually grew up, kind of. It's been a few years since I was a kid, but I eventually realized something else nobody ever told me. You can just make art.

You, a human being, can make art whenever you want to. You can make bad art.

You can make bad art until you feel like it's good.

Or you might realize that what you thought was bad was something else, which is honest.

Bad and good are too small of words, anyway, to capture the magic that happens ...

...when someone's story or music or visualization finds us and resonates because it feels true to us.

Isn't that why we make art?

You can just make something.

It can be big,

or small,

simple,

or complex.

For one person specifically to have,

or for 100 people to see.

Or you can just make it for yourself.

You can make a thing,

and another thing,

and another thing,

and keep going and see where it takes you.

Because you never know.

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Registration for my 2026 online writing courses, How To Tell One Story and Demystifying Publication, ends October 18—more info here.​

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Also: If you'd like to watch the video version of the above essay, here it is: