Maybe you used to make things. Paintings, sketches, something with your hands — it didn’t have to be a big deal, it was just yours. And then, gradually, it wasn’t anymore.
You didn’t quit dramatically. You didn’t walk away. You just… set it down. Life got louder. The making got quieter. And now it feels almost foreign, like trying to have a conversation in a language you haven’t spoken in years.
I want to talk to you about that. Because I don’t think you lost anything. I think it’s still there: waiting.
The thing nobody tells you about “not being creative anymore”
Most of the advice about getting your creativity back assumes you have a motivation problem. So you’re told to try vision boards, or to find inspiration online, or to take a class when you’re “really ready.”
But what I see: the people who feel most stuck aren’t lacking inspiration. They’re waiting for permission.
Permission to start before they know what they’re doing. Permission to make something that doesn’t look like what everyone else is making. Permission to call themselves an artist when they haven’t made anything in months, or years.
And here’s something about that kind of waiting: it doesn’t end on its own. Because the permission was never coming from the outside. It was yours to begin with.
The fear underneath the waiting
I want to name something that I think is underneath a lot of this, because it isn’t said out loud very often.
Some of you aren’t waiting because you don’t have time (though the time excuse feels very real and very solid, doesn’t it?). You’re waiting because you’re afraid. Afraid that if you actually try — if you really pick up a brush or a pencil and make something — you’ll find out that you’re not good. That the thing you suspected about yourself all along is true.
That fear is so understandable. And, I say this directly but kindly: it is not a reason to wait. It is the reason to start.
Because making something imperfect in private, on a Tuesday, with whatever is in your art supply drawer, won’t confirm the worst thing you believe about yourself. It will disprove it. Gradually, messily, undeniably – it will disprove it.
What the workbook actually does
Take What Belongs to You: Wild Creativity is a creativity workbook for artists in exactly this place: not at the beginning of a polished creative practice, but at the door of one. Not sure how to walk back in. Maybe not sure they deserve to.
It works through three phases across nine exercises:
- Inspiration (exercises 1–3): Find what actually interests you, not what you think should interest you. Make something small from that place.
- Technique (exercises 4–6): Choose your medium. Make it once. Make it again. Cover it up. Stop waiting until you know enough — you learn by making, not by preparing to make.
- Permission (exercises 7–9): Find what calls to you. Name why it works. Make your experimental art. Yours. Not perfect.
What you need: paper, whatever art materials you have on hand (not the right ones — the ones you have), and about 3–4 hours total. Not a studio. Not the perfect setup. No other reason beyond wanting to come back to yourself.
By the end, you’ll have nine pieces of art. Small, imperfect, and entirely yours. That last part matters more than the other two.
A note on the Kindle edition
The Kindle edition includes all nine exercises plus free access to a printable collection of studio marks, the same raw, handmade elements from the book, ready to print and work with alongside your own materials. Access details are inside the book. No separate purchase.
I made this workbook because I genuinely believe your creative life belongs to you: not to institutions, not to gatekeepers, not to whoever told you at some point that your work wasn’t ready or wasn’t enough. It was always yours. It still is.
You don’t have to earn your way back in. You just have to start.
Get the print workbook on Amazon →
Get the Kindle edition on Amazon ($7.99) →
Shine your light!
Monette