#create stuff

I need to share something before I drop my new series.

I just watched a TED talk by Amie McNee (god, I adore her—her book We Need Your Art: Stop Fucking Around And Make Something is one I’ll never stop recommending). She reminded me of something I keep forgetting, something that feels like oxygen every time I return to it: the importance of making art. Daily.

If you’ve been following me for a while, you know how much I’ve struggled here—both in my writing and in myself. For a long time, the question that haunted me was: Who do I make art for? My old answer was always “everyone” or “the world.” But that answer almost destroyed me.

Because the truth is, I wasn’t creating for the world—I was creating for validation. I was creating to soothe my trauma responses, to fill the void where love and safety should have been. That’s why I deleted my original blog (for those who didn’t know). I needed to step away, to rewrite my own narrative, to stop bleeding for applause.

Little Lissa used to write only for herself. She wrote to survive a childhood where she felt invisible, unloved, misunderstood. Her words were secret companions, a way to breathe when breathing was hard. And I’m learning to return to her—to write for me again.

Here’s the thing: art doesn’t have to be for the internet. It doesn’t have to be for anyone. It can be messy, nonsensical, private. It can exist solely to heal you. When I self-published my book, it wasn’t for sales (which, unsurprisingly, didn’t come). It was for me. For the younger version of myself who once dreamed it might be possible. For the few people who did read it, I hope it mattered. That’s the magic Amie talks about—that art can be someone’s antidote. That in the right moment, one poem, one painting, one song, can stitch something invisible inside another person. That’s alchemy.

Writing has always been my therapy. Whether it’s poetry, stories, or fanfiction, I write to mend what I once believed was broken. It wasn’t broken—it was bruised, and word by word, I’ve been tending to it. And you can do the same. Whether you paint, sing, cook, weave, garden, sculpt, or stitch—you are repairing yourself when you create. You are becoming.

So yes, writing will always define me. Some of it is just mine, a quiet conversation with myself. Some of it I share, because I believe there’s power in connection, in saying: Here, this is me—do you see yourself too?

And maybe this post is just me rambling (wouldn’t be the first time), but maybe someone out there needs to hear this: