Every Genre Is Also Fantasy

Everything you create is fantasy.

Yes, you paint what you see. Yes, you write from experience.

But as soon as it’s an image on a canvas, it’s not the river! As soon as it’s a character in a short story, IT’S NOT YOU!

Recognizing this doesn’t mean realizing you’ve failed. On the contrary, recognizing this is ARTISTIC FREEDOM.

Because all of a sudden, your allegiance isn’t to reality. Yes, you draw deeply from reality. But now you serve only the work itself. You stop trying to fit every nuance of a situation into a three minute song. You stop trying to hold all one hundred of your emotions in a single photograph.

You stop meeting the needs of reality, and you start truly meeting the needs of your work.

Do this, and you access something more “real” than real.

So concede it! Let your work be fantasy! 

It will be more shatteringly real than ever.