The Art From Burn Outs
Being burnt out is an annoying period of time that we all have to go through. Many wouldn’t have the energy to pick up a pen, go to the studio or even have thoughts about how they are gonna reach the end of their goal. Burn outs brings doubt to artist’s mind. Doubts that they are not good enough, or that they have become rusty n complacent, or maybe an overwhelming feeling of neglect. Burn outs do not have an end date…until…
Life is a ying and yang circumstance. When the scale is tipping one way, it sure can tip the other way too. Instead of seeing burn outs as a devastating, ‘I must give up’ state, try looking at it from a ‘maybe I need a new scenery’. As creatives, our mind loves to dissect our interest of topics right down to exhaustion. Obviously, to reach a state of burn out often is quite unhealthy for your brain. However, I believe that once an artist hits a wall and feels stuck, it means that it is time for a new creative experience.
What is a new creative experience? In my own words, I feel like a new creative experience is when you discover deeper layers to you that you’ve never seen or known before. Whenever I have a project, I always look back to my project beforehand and analyse my creative direction and try to differ from it in my newest project. I want to create a diversity of perspectives, theories, experiences that allows me to succeed in self-discovery and ultimately, helps me avoid the state of being burnt out.
Around a month ago, I was asked about my identity and basically how I define it. It was an odd question as I find identity to be an umbrella term for many things that makes me..me. In this case, I will be talking about my creative identity. Shaquilla as QUILLA.
When I started music, debuting with my first single ‘Alone’, I was working on my first layer of creativity. I was writing music as a form of self-expression, a way of processing the events that happened in my life, that I couldn’t let go. I figured that if I were to pour out my thoughts and feelings, I would then be able to move on, however, I did not consider that music would act as a time capsule. My music didn’t change just because I did. So if I were to listen back to that era of music and perform those songs on a regular basis, I would simply be reliving those feelings, those moments and those thoughts. This is where I hit a wall. I felt like I was going in a loop. I needed change in everything, I needed a fresh approach.
At the moment, I could not have travelled or put myself into a physically new position so I changed what I wrote. I changed direction towards being hopeful, if I could feel all these bad things but I don’t want these bad feelings, then I’m going to surround myself with feelings of new beginnings, hope and gratefulness. That’s when my EP, ReBirth, was born. Since then I started to navigate this new perspective of hopefulness and released a single about self-love, projected towards me and the listeners. Now that I am working on new music, I feel a tiny bit of pressure of keeping up the momentum within the theme of self-love and hopefulness. So I dig for more. Whenever I get stuck at lyrics, I know that I need to find more inspiration, so I look into other artists with a much larger discography, research into poets, reading books in different scenery, watch music videos with related storylines and read all the blogs and mags that could carve a deeper hole into my creativity. This is what helps me form my art and that all started from being burnt out in the first place.
Once you’ve felt what it’s like at the bottom, you’ll automatically work harder to never feel that feeling again.
Next time you feel stuck and burnt out creatively, it is possibly time for a new challenge. Do something out of your routine, push yourself, dig into yourself or write out of your own perspective. Anything is better than what you’ve last done because you are forever evolving !
