"We Need Your Art" by Amie McNee

Why I Picked It Up

I picked this up during a stretch where I was thinking deeply about creativity, writing about it, analyzing it, circling it, but not always fully stepping into it.

There’s a particular kind of hesitation that can masquerade as refinement. A sense of waiting until the voice feels clearer, the idea more formed, the timing more right.

This book met me there.

Why it Stayed With Me:

McNee’s tone is unapologetic.

Direct.

Almost bracing in its insistence.

Her core message is simple:

• The world needs your art.

• Not someday.

• Not once you feel confident.

• Now.

What struck me most wasn’t the urgency, though it’s there, but the permission.

The refusal to treat creativity as indulgent or secondary.

The clear assertion that making something is not selfish. It is necessary.

Where It Meets My Work

Much of what I explore in this space circles questions of authority and differentiation:

• Where do we locate our worth?

• In productivity?

• In approval?

• In usefulness to others?

Or in the quieter act of responding to something alive inside us?

As I’ve written about transitions and aging, I’ve become more aware of how easily “thinking about creating” can become a sophisticated form of avoidance. Especially for those of us who are comfortable with insight.

This book gently (and sometimes not so gently) interrupts that pattern.

It reminds me that sometimes clarity doesn’t come from further reflection.

It comes from moving your hands.

A Quiet Takeaway

There are seasons when analysis deepens us.

And there are seasons when we must stop refining and begin making.

For me, this book was a nudge toward action, not dramatic, not performative, but steady.

• Honest.

• Present.

A reminder that art is not the reward for having it all figured out.

It is part of how we figure things out.

Available here →