Living a creative life isn’t just about doing the work—it’s also about finding community, a challenge nearly every artist faces. We hear this advice so often that it starts to feel like background noise as we retreat into our quiet corners, typing away in isolation and only “connecting” with others during a mindless scroll break. Writing is, by nature, a solitary endeavor, and parts of it always will be. But the truth remains: we need others to sustain us on this journey. Whether for inspiration, accountability, or opportunity, no creative path is meant to be walked alone. Yet, in an increasingly impersonal world, forging meaningful connections can feel daunting. Amie McNee once felt that same creative solitude—and decided to do something about it.

In 2014, she began the Instagram account “Inspired to Write” (@inspiredtowrite) with a single post asking fellow writers what inspires them, unbeknownst to her at the time, that decision kicked off a tidal wave that would go on to inspire fellow writers and artists all over the world. With a following of 478K that she’s built over the past decade, McNee has not only grown a global audience of artists eager for her particular brand of motivation and encouragement, she’s transformed her daily doses of artistic determination into her latest book, We Need Your Art. In this nonfiction manifesto to creators, she combines her usual brand of unabashed drive with practical tips to keep creators creating.

We were thrilled to have a chance to chat with her about the community she’s built, her own art and the love she has for pushing others to pursue their highest selves. In her own words, with passion and excitement in her eyes, she declares:

“We, the artists, need to get out of our way and do the thing that we’re here to do. We Need Your Art is the rewrite. It is a reminder that now—more than ever before—art is fucking necessary.”

We Need Your Art by Amie McNee

In We Need Your Art, Amie McNee empowers artists and aspiring creatives to embrace their craft with confidence and consistency. Drawing from her experiences as a novelist and creative coach, she offers a two-week reset plan and practical strategies to overcome impostor syndrome, perfectionism, and procrastination. Through daily, sustainable creative habits and thoughtful journal prompts, McNee redefines what it means to be an artist, providing the encouragement and framework to create boldly and without shame.

Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon | Barnes & Noble 

Patience in the Absence of Participation

It’s fair to say that we live in a pretty instant gratification world, so when we see someone like Amie with nearly a half a million followers, it can be easy to wish for that without appreciating the effort. And whether your goal is to build an online presence with impact or to create a body of work to leave behind as your legacy, Amie’s determination and steady dedication is one we can all model after.

When we discussed the formation of Inspired to Write, she was emphatic about how little engagement there was in those early days.

“No one participated. It was just me pouring my little heart out to no one. But I’m so glad I did.”

Whether you’re working on a first draft or posting to a social media platform, the quiet way all things begin can be discouraging. You’ll have doubt and deflation as you pursue any kind of creative endeavor in the beginning, but it’s important to remember your why and to press on regardless of how you think it’s going. Amie started the account because she was seeking something she couldn’t find. This feels very aligned with the common advice “write the story you want to read” and so she did, without knowing just how grand the story would become.

“I was just sitting on my bed, and I thought, I am so lonely in this creative process, and I just wish that someone was talking about it online… and I just couldn’t find anyone, so I was like, fine. I’ll do it myself.”

As an author, Amie has written and self-published two novels. We Need Your Art will be her first traditionally published book and is a work of nonfiction. Recently, however, she also made the announcement that she has secured another traditional deal for her fiction work.

All of this stemming from her relentless pursuit of her craft and a dedication to the belief that if she continues forward things will work out.

Choosing the Creative Path

If you’ve ever wondered if your dream to be an artist was silly or misguided, Amie McNee is the prescription to get you out of that headspace and into your work.

Anyone who imagines a life filled with art and passion is quickly bludgeoned by the way society looks down their nose at this pursuit and it can leave anyone with an overwhelming amount of self doubt. Amie included.

“[I] just had this thirst for creativity and a thirst for telling stories. And it didn’t die. And I kept wondering, ‘Am I ever gonna grow up? Am I gonna become a real adult at some point and just stop wanting to do this?’ But I didn’t. In fact, I just got deeper and deeper into it. I’m the most passionate I’ve ever been about storytelling at the age of thirty-two. I wrote my first proper book and finished it probably when I was in my early twenties. And I just didn’t stop.”

Not only did she not give up. She lives each day wanting to make sure none of us do either and lavishes when an artists pushes past the expectations of “polite society”.

“I love watching artists figure out how to fuck with the system. And the way we all do it. We’re like, ‘Okay, maybe I’ll get in this way, and then I’ll make my own branch.’ It’s just beautiful. But we do have an intolerance for the mundane.”

And that’s okay! It’s okay to be bored or broken by the corporate job. It’s okay to find meaning in the beautiful. It’s okay to wish for a purpose-filled life. It’s not just okay. It may even be essential and too many of us are missing it.

Stuffed Geese

The Western world is one of constant consumption. Our daily diet includes doom scrolling and advertisements, binge watching and binge eating. Our time and attention constantly overtaxed leaving us feeling perpetually full while simultaneously empty. It is in this that the true purpose and meaning inside a creative life can be gleaned and Amie had a lot to say on the subject of art’s importance.

“We’re in a culture of being only consumers. And all we do is just consume, consume, consume. And we’re being overfed with content and overfed with just information and the news. And that information isn’t going anywhere. I feel like we’re stuffed geese. We’ve just been fed, fed, fed. And there’s just a blockage for so many humans because nothing’s coming out.

We’re not synthesizing any of the information. We’re not processing any of our emotions. We’re just getting fed, fed, fed. We’re getting fatter and fatter [with information], and something’s gotta give because it’s not good.

So we need to move away from a culture of consumption back to our roots as humans. To a culture of creation. It’s okay and beautiful to consume. I mean, I consume all the time. I want to embrace and enjoy art. But too many of us are consuming and not creating. So we feel very useless, and we’re watching the world. We’re just consuming it, and we feel completely and utterly out of control, useless, without agency, without purpose. And we just think, ‘Fuck, the world’s on fire, and there’s nothing for me to do.’ When we learn that we can create and make and use our voices, we find a lifeboat in the storm. We find purpose and agency and realize that there are things to do. And our voice is important. We can make sense of a lot of the grief and pain that we consume when we put it back into our art. It’s a processing tool that’s just been thrown out the window, and we need to process more than ever.”

In order to pull ourselves out of the mindset that the work we do is just for fun or is a hobby or that art is a flimsy fantasy, this is the mindset we have to approach it with. Whether you’re writing a light romance or a deeply personal memoir or heavily researched historical fiction or a heart-pounding thriller, these outlets are not only worthy for the consumer, they are necessary for you to purge your system of the chaotic swirl of the world we’re living in.

Battling Creative Blocks

Once an artist overcomes the lie that what they want to be doing is trivial, there are still many hurdles that lie ahead. Perfectionism, imposter syndrome, self-doubt, self-sabotage, fear of failure (oh, and success), comparison, procrastination. What a mountain we must climb to get to the other side. And Amie tackles all of these. Not only in We Need Your Art, but on her account and in her life, everyday. She’s abundantly honest about the constant nagging of her own inner monologue, and when we asked which of these she struggles with, she had this to say:

“I fucking deal with all of them all the time. As I move through my journey and I become a more experienced writer, they just pop up in different ways. I do feel like this isn’t something to vanquish. These things will always pop up. How do we deal with them when they arise? Obviously, as a book comes out, imposter syndrome’s a big one. Like ‘Who the fuck are you to be speaking into this space?’ is definitely something I hear every now and again. I really cling to my mantra that ‘Imposter syndrome is a sign that you are leveling up.’ It’s so obvious to me right now that I’m leveling up. I’m being challenged, [and] I’m rising to the challenge. There’s no wonder that I have a voice inside my head that’s like, ‘Who are you?’ because I’m doing brave things. I’m growing out of an old version of myself, so I’m really trying to cling to that mantra. But I navigate perfectionism, procrastination, fear of failure, fear of success, impatience—all of these things come up for me. It’s about just taking precious care of myself in the moment when they’re feeling very in my face.”

I don’t believe there is an artist alive who doesn’t–at least occasionally–feel the pang of “I can’t do this.” And there may not be a cure, but there are ways to accept and alchemize these feelings. Amie covers them in both her forthcoming book and daily on Inspired to Write.

The Two-Week Reset

For some, crawling out of one of these creative black holes may take more than willing yourself out and Amie has a solution for that as well. In We Need Your Art, she explores a two-week reset designed to reignite an artist’s fuel when they’re struggling to come back to their work.

“I think so many artists, we get these little breaks—these little blocks—and that’s totally fucking normal. It’s normal to need rest from our creative process. It’s normal to just step away for a bit. Our lives are chaotic. We’re gonna have ebbs and flows where we need to step away.

The problem is we make such a big deal about coming back to it that we postpone and postpone and postpone. The idea of coming back to the book that you haven’t looked at in a month is too intimidating. So what the two-week reset is there to do is to make it so fucking easy to just drop back into the art. So that when we have had time away or when we’ve not even begun like at all, coming to the art isn’t this huge, intimidating, massive fucking thing. It’s just super easeful, super joyful, super doable. Art has been pedestaled to be this big, romantic, huge thing that we’re gonna need so much time and so much energy [to do]. It’s just bringing it back to a very doable reset. So that when we do fall out of touch with our art, it’s like, ‘It’s okay. I’ll just do a reset.’ And we get back into it, and we touch base again. [It’s] making it easeful, rather than a big, chaotic, exhausting reentry.”

If ever there was a reason to pick up a book, this is it. We’ve all suffered the daunt of starting a new project or revisiting one we’ve spent a lot of time away from. This is the key for reconnecting and plugging back in that you’ll just have to buy the book in order to find out more about.

Balancing Branding, Creativity and Business

Once you’ve come to terms with the artistic hurdles, there are still other factors to consider in pursuing a career as an artist. A creative life isn’t only about producing art. It’s about marketing yourself, your products and finding a balance between creation and promotion. Too many of us shy away from the latter. Amie, however, entered the space from a branding perspective, even if that’s not fully what she was intending at the time.

She has discovered, through Inspired to Write, that you are the product. You are what people connect to. You can move genres or projects and still remain relevant because you–the artist–are who people care about when branding is done right.

“I don’t believe in a niche. I’ve always been a big one for saying, ‘Fuck the niche’ because I think creatives are constantly told to specialize, specialize, specialize when we are an intensely curious type of human. The creative wants to explore. I hate the idea of minimizing that curiosity because I believe that when I paint, I’m becoming a better writer. When I write non-fiction, I’m becoming a better fiction writer. I don’t believe mastery is obtained as an artist by specialization. It is a slightly different conversation when you’re talking about audience and capturing your audience. But even so, I still believe—especially in this day and age—my fiction does really well because people want to know what Amie wrote. People are interested in me whether they know me predominately from my non-fiction or my fiction. We’re in this really unique circumstance now where people can fall in love with the artist, not just the art. And so, I’m the niche. It’s me. It’s Amie. It’s my very, very unique niche. Literally, nobody is in this niche because it’s Amie, and people can explore whatever it is I do. I do encourage artists who really feel trapped by this idea of only doing one thing to let people fall in love with you. And then, whatever the fuck it is you do, they can just follow along with you.”

This is perhaps the most timely marketing and branding advice anyone can give. But, in a way, it’s also kind of the easiest. Wherever you go, show up as you. Let your authentic self be the attractor. Not a tagline, not a book cover, not a piece of media coverage, just you. And though all of those other things matter, the only thing that is completely unmovable and entirely in your control is you. A reality that will matter in the future more than it ever has before…

Artists in the Age of AI

Amie is truly leading the front lines for many staggering questions artists should be asking in this modern, digital era. Not the least among them being how we should regard (and use) emerging artificial intelligence. In many instances, artists are rejecting this technology out of fear, misunderstanding and the daunting certainty that AI art will start to take the place of human artists.

However, this isn’t a moment where we should all be panicking. In fact, it’s a moment where we should be partnering in the areas where we can and preparing for what the inevitable future will hold. Amie certainly is. With caution and an open mind, she’s watching AI closely, dabbling a bit and trying to form her own thoughts outside the overarching fear that is permeating every industry.

“It’s a huge conversation and one that I genuinely get a little bit nervous talking about because people have such ferocious opinions of it. But I do have a lot of thoughts about it. The first big one I guess is I think we’re about to go in for a very, very big change in our lives. And I think that my priority is to protect artists. A lot of people assume that means ‘Never use AI. We’ve got to make sure nobody ever uses it.’ I just don’t think that’s going to be possible. And I also think that artists deserve to use cool tools to enhance their practices.”

For many, it’s hard to say right now where the line is between using the technology so we don’t fall behind and abusing a system that is gleaning its knowledge by scraping the data of all the artists in existence. It’s a force we can’t avoid, but we also have to be protective over what makes human-made art so transcendent.

“I don’t want artists to boycott everything because it leaves us behind, I feel. And I worry that we’re just going to get further and further and further behind because we’re being very principled about what we will and will not do. In saying that, we need to protect artists and especially stolen work. ”

We can all likely agree that letting something like ChatGPT do the writing for you is unacceptable. But where do we draw the line? Are we allowed to converse with it like we would a human as we hammer out ideas? Are we allowed to use it like Google and ask for its help connecting research dots that would uplift a story?

Then it gets evermore complicated when we talk about using it in place of human-offered services. Should it be an editor for us? Should we allow it to design covers? While, at the moment, the answer for most seems to be a resounding no, how long can we hold up these principles? And if everyone isn’t holding them up, will those staunch opponents be left behind in the revolution? It’s a more difficult conversation than any of us are willing to admit and Amie is toying with the nuances on a day-by-day basis as she tries to figure out its role in her life and in the artistic community as a whole.

“I feel very judgment-free, and I’m very open to listening to where everyone’s coming from because this is such a new conversation. And we need to navigate it together, and I think we need to navigate it without yelling at each other. We need to be just talking. Like ‘How are you gonna use it? What do you feel about this?’ We need to be feeling safe in community whereas I think already this is a taboo topic that I feel nervous talking about. Because people can be so quick to yell at you about it. So I want really open communication about this whole conversation. In terms of [what it’s] gonna mean for artists, I have a weird amount of hope, I think. I think the humanness of creativity is going to become a more and more scarce resource, and we can use that to our advantage. This is made by a fucking human. It’s gonna be something that’s very, very precious, and we get to put our stamp on it. And we get to claim that. I believe that humans are always going to want to connect with other humans. And a huge part of consuming art is to connect with another human. So I don’t fear our eradication, but things are gonna change. And I refuse to not be on top of that.”

Whether it is our own anxiety or the distraction of today’s culture or the rapid pace of technology, a lot can stand in the way of becoming the artists we want to be. But that’s still not a good enough excuse not to pursue the work that calls to us. It just means, that doing this work (and making a living off it) may require more effort than we realized. But it’s worth it. You need it as an individual. The world needs it to heal and learn and grow. WE NEED YOUR ART is the war cry of Amie McNee and if you’re struggling to come to terms with your creative drive, thankfully, she’s written the book on it.