You don’t have to suffer to make great art. You do have to pay attention.

Pain is not the ingredient. What good work actually asks for is noticing, the willingness to look closely at something and not look away until you have it, and that can happen in a perfectly contented life. The suffering story is attractive because it makes misery feel productive. Attention is harder to romanticise and far more reliable.

Spend ten minutes a day this week looking carefully at one ordinary thing and writing what you see. Do not try to make it meaningful. Build the habit while things are going fine, so the work does not depend on them going badly.