Nineties Fantasy Has Ruined Me For Normal Life

As I was pondering whether my February purchase should be an Abney Park poster that gave me chills down my spine (in a good way), or a set of herbal hair care products to baby my tattered ends, I suddenly realised what a vast number of my purchases - valued successes and obsessive overspends alike - had in common. A glance at my library of fantasy, sci-fi and urban fantasy novels, my modest art collection (heavy on the dragons and faeries), my t-shirts (same), even my perfume collection (with names like Goblin, Elf Queen and Shieldmaiden) should perhaps have clued me in sooner. I'm completely besotted with magical worlds, fantastical creatures and anything that taps into that, from music to unicorn socks.

The thing is, this used to be a world I actively participated in creating for myself. I grew up reading Chris Wooding, Tamora Pearce, C.S. Lewis, Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell, Terry Brooks, Robert Jordan, J.R.R. Tolkien and many more, and I wrote my own stories and songs and drew my own art inspired by these worlds to varying degrees. Into my early twenties, I was still writing novels and fanfic, although I noticed that the more time I spent in the loop of shopping and social media, the more laborious it got. Although I suspect that the amount of time I spent immersed in mediaeval-esque fantasy has a lot to do with why I can spin wool by hand on a drop spindle, nowadays I spend hours searching for the perfect book, TV show or album - not bad in itself, but representative of the fact that I now simply consume instead of participate.

Once I came to believe that the things I was making weren't necessarily that great (from a critical or commercial standpoint), the idea started to seep in that I should spend my time doing something more "productive" instead. I didn't devote enough time to my drawing to ever become a "good" artist - so why bother? What was I ever going to do with those pictures anyway? My writing wasn't terrible, but getting published seemed to involve a lot of marketing and self-promotion, which wasn't what I wanted to spend my time on. And gradually my writing dried up too.

Except that "more productive" thing I should be doing never arrived. I went to work, I watched telly, I spent a lot of time online. I did try MMORPGs, but I didn't find that gaming gave the same sense of being 'in' that world. I do like Dungeons & Dragons, but I'm hampered in getting into character by my own shyness, and my ex attends the only D&D group I know of in my town. I did do some character art, though, not gonna lie... (My character is a halfling barbarian with a background in piracy... Yes, my original Dungeon Master let me have my halfling be a barbarian (berserking and giant warhammers typically requiring a character taller than the average toddler, but my dorky heart wants what it wants) and I REGRET NOTHING.)

Fast forward a few years, and my imagination and vibrant inner life have pretty much stagnated. I realise now that I shouldn't have worried about being productive, or whether what I was making would be commercially viable. I was so convinced that if I wanted to be creative I needed to be able to sell the end product, to other people, for money, that I overlooked the happiness and satisfaction I got from building my own worlds. The things I get the most enjoyment from buying now are those that tap back into that inner life - albums that tell stories, like Abney Park's Aether Shanties, and magazines and books that are full of magic, like my Enchanted Living subscription, and anything by Naomi Novik, Holly Black or Kate Griffin.

So I hereby give myself permission to be unproductive. To doodle pointless elves. To make bad art and write bad stories and use fanfiction to hang out in someone else's awesome world. To not feel bad if no one ever reads those stories but me, because sometimes the point of something is simply the doing of it, and the satisfaction it gives you, which you can't just go out and buy. To be inspired by other people's work, not feel disheartened or intimidated. To make things just for me, to write the things I want to read, instead of hanging over the shoulders of great authors (metaphorically... that would be creepy) waiting for them to write the exact thing I'm thinking about.

Sometimes, making a lot of bad art leads to good art. But if it doesn't, and at the end of my life all I leave behind is a heap of bad art, that would still be better than leaving behind no art at all.