Secrets Spilled

Most successful creative professionals, if they’re being honest, will tell you, “I work hard, but the work itself is not actually that hard”

— Heather Havrilesky (@hhavrilesky) March 28, 2016

Awl pal Heather Havrilesky — pre-order her forthcoming Ask Polly collection now! — is telling some terrible truths here. See also: “Read some stuff online. A lot of it is bad. See? Not very hard at all to do this.” Anybody who tells you how difficult it is doesn’t want you to realize what a scam they’ve got going. Creative people are mostly creative at making you think what they do is both onerous and mystical, when really the magic is that people buy into their self-mythologizing bullshit.