Stop Starving Yourself, Stop Starving Yourself...

Starving yourself is bad, mmkay? And the cutting. And the booze. I realize that whatever a man, a woman, two dwarves and a parakeet get up into the privacy of their own home is their business, but for God's sake, man, making yourself feel like shit makes your work feel like shit too.

Whether you really want to admit it or not, your work is an extension of your well-being on top of everything else. Happy artists get work done. Not-so happy artists get work done too, but it probably won't be their best stuff. There's being able to convey certain emotions in your work, and then there's dragging yourself into these deep dark pits where you can't seem to do anything but sit in front of the TV watching The Price is Right and sucking down cheese. Or maybe that's the point in the creative process where you decide to get your character captured and raped by some psychopath. Either way it's not the place to be.

Sure, there's times where pain is acceptable, necessary, and even beneficial. Self-destructive behavior is none of the above. Don't fool yourself into thinking that this is limited to physical actions either: DeviantArt pissing you off because you're not getting enough hits/comments? Stop visiting. E-mail making you mad? Check it less. Troll getting on your case? Block his ass.

The simple matter is that drama, whining, bitching, and moaning in general are turn-offs. Sure, you can still be successful AND be completely emo, but don't expect it to get you further than the ones who look unflappable and know where to cut their losses. It's a reputation thing, and it's not that people won't sympathize with you... it's that if you bitch over everything they'll wonder when you'll start bitching about them instead.

If you don't want to look back on your posts and cringe, stop writing the posts in the first place and spend more time doing something about it.