You make the art that makes you

Lately I have been stuck in that void of panic where you wonder whether or not you are in a place that will allow you to make art.

When I was studying writing at Uni I read "On Writing" by Stephen King; a bit of a retrospective glance at what makes writing an art and how that art is crafted. He revealed in the book that while he wrote his earlier (and most famous) works he was an alcoholic with a cocaine habit. Notably, he mentioned that while he visited his dying mother he was probably "...either drunk or hungover or some combination of the two". He went on to talk about his fears that he would not be able to write if he got his life on track and started living healthily and for his family. He later said that once he went clean and realised he could still write he was enthralled and felt completely liberated. He listed the books he had written since. I hadn't heard of a single one of them. I looked up reviews - they were not good.

This has haunted me ever since. I feel the exact same fears that if I let things get too normal then that might be reflected in the music I try and create, or worse, not reflected at all - I will not be able to create the music in the first place.

As I get older and things appear more stable, I get more anxious and more panicked that this could be the end of my creative drive. While my most prolific periods have been in the darkest times, they produced the work most precious to me.

So I suppose some questions loom patiently: what sacrifices must be made? and must they be made?