Don't wait for inspiration, they said

This is me, in a studio gone quiet, spiralling into depths unknown

Feb 07, 2026

I just lulled my daughter back to sleep. It’s 2:22 am. My side of the world is fast asleep. The dogs outside ran out of howls. People also seem to have decided to let them enjoy their slumber tonight. The train station announcements have gone fewer and clearer. My husband isn’t snoring either. And I can hear the click of the “silent” mouse—that’s how quiet is the space I’m in. And yet, my mind is full and my hands empty. The creative person's version of “all dressed up with nowhere to go.”

Tonight, once again for almost the 100th time in a row, I find myself incapable of making art.

“Don’t wait for inspiration to strike, let it find you busy working,” they said.

I believed it. So I opened my iPad. Stared at the screen. Closed it. Repeated this ritual like a very slow, very stupid meditation. Inspiration did not show up. Clearly, it doesn't check in on people doing absolutely nothing.

This isn’t burnout, exactly. Burnout has a shape I recognize—exhaustion with a traceable cause, a tiredness that makes sense. This is something else. The signal went quiet.

The funny thing is, today, I shut down my work laptop. I almost never do that. But today, my butt didn’t leave the chair from 11 am till 10 pm and during my pee breaks, I saw Figma grid overlaid on the toilet and towel rack—frames, buckets, margins everywhere—like I’m in some augmented reality. My mother-in-law watched my daughter while I worked nonstop. so, when the final call got over, I took 5 extra minutes to slowly close all windows and tabs and files and shut my laptop down. Ceremonially. Like I was laying it to rest. Brief relief washed over me—the kind that makes you think you've solved your life when really you've just shut a laptop.

I told my husband at dinner that tonight I don’t think I’ll be able to get up and make art. And yet, here I am, wide awake, with acrylic markers on left and a sketchbook on right. Yay, dad! I finally pestled in discipline and routine for an art practice. And now that I have it, I sit incapable of making, like touching art supplies would vaporise me.

You know, I had a different post planned for today, something more polished. It’s half-edited in my drafts. Probably next week.

Tonight, I want to allow my brain a proper, messy conversation. Because I have been walking in and out of my post-midnight studio carrying the same restless emptiness—no lighter when I leave.

I have been turning the dial anyway.

I carved one plate, the light and shadow play on my bedroom’s wall every morning. It was supposed to be an easy carve with straight lines, reduction printing, and monotone colour choices. I pulled a few test prints. But I had to force it, and forced making brought no joy. Without joy, I couldn’t continue. I left it in the middle.

At hand

Then I got excited about something small. When my daughter disturbs my workflow, I often have to inspire her to draw alongside me. This leaves me with little doodles on sticky notes scattered around my desk.

I thought: what if I turned these into something?

The doodle-filled sticky notes into origami pinwheels—resembling joy. A printout of my packed calendar folded into a sailboat—resembling sailing through it all. Bits of crumpled paper—resembling unresolved emotions. That’s exactly my bittersweet life.

I folded a few items. I named it “At Hand”—apt for what I had at hand, supplies and time, to make a little art. I imagined putting them on my website as a personal project, not for sale. Something I could continue as my daughter grows—a project on balancing motherhood, a full-time job, and an interrupted, imperfect art practice.

Four days later, it felt too trivial. Too small to count as “real art.” I stopped.

Invisible cities

Last month, Calvino’s Invisible Cities enamoured me. I made rough sketches, researched the metaphorical and psychological meanings, thought about how to transform them into an Indian context. Mixed media felt right—I love mixing mediums, I love surrealistic work.

Then I made the mistake of checking what others had made. Rookie. Move. My ideas looked exactly like everyone else's, except theirs were better executed. I was struggling to “indianize” them too. The excitement curdled into disappointment faster than milk in Delhi summer.

The whole weekend’s worth of research now rests in my Notion. Nothing got made.

Shut up, brain!

Yep! I said that to my brain and doodled just whatever popped up on Pinterest.

I didn't even allow myself to click on a pin. No scrolling. No exploring. Because I know myself—between the click and the new tab loading, the brain diva wakes up. She has opinions. Loud ones. And suddenly I'm researching the perfect composition instead of making literally anything.

So I spent whatever time I had that night making some quick, lopsided, imperfect sketches, thanked Nishant Jain a.k.a. The Sneaky Artist for his advice, and went to bed. I can still smell my joy from this note:

I closed my eyes that night with joy and hope that I’ll continue it the next day and probably, finally go outdoors to sketch from life.

I opened my eyes to a screaming child, an angry garbage collector having a beef with my doorbell, and an already done-with-the-day husband. Romance, hello?

I thought it was the turn, but it turned out to be just another rise before the crash.

Perhaps, my life is completely, utterly full.

I have a toddler. A job that keeps me in back-to-back meetings and constant context-switching. A husband’s business where I contribute logistics and strategy. A mentorship I'm deeply grateful for but that also brings pressure—the pressure to produce, to have something to show. You know, proof I exist. Evidence I'm not just nibbling biscuits alone in a dark corner.

For me to make art, I think, I need time more than silence. I have painted through thunderstorms and old-people-DJ-nights a.k.a. mata ka jaagran. I carve while some show with endless seasons plays like a radio. And I’ve produced volumes of work.

So maybe it’s monkey mind, as my mother calls it. Or maybe it’s a clearing I need.

You know how after a harvest, farmers leave the land fallow?

They don’t plant anything for a season or two. The matter that remains—roots, leaves, debris—breaks down and replenishes the nutrients. When the new crop goes in, the soil is ready again.

Maybe that’s what this is. My well is low. My nutrients depleted. And what I’m doing now—reading, noticing, underlining, trying and stopping, trying again—is letting the organic matter decompose. Letting the ground rest. Or at least, letting it do whatever it’s doing while I wait.

But honestly…

…most days this doesn't feel like fallow. It feels like exile. Like my creative self looked at the calendar, looked at the bandwidth, looked at the trail of abandoned starts, packed up, and left without forwarding address. And now I’m not sure when she’s coming back, or if she will.

The mentorship sessions approach and I have nothing new to show. At this hour, the thought arrives: Maybe I’m not actually an artist. Maybe I’m just someone who used to make things.

I don’t believe that thought in the daylight. But it visits at night. It has a key.

My mentor suggests exercising patience and reminds that I’m still clicking pictures of anything that pulls me and questioning why it’s pulling at me. I’m still concocting series of artworks in my head as I stir stew in the pot. Still absorbing my surroundings, my emotions, even if nothing visible comes out. While still being exiled from the “form” land.

It’s a different kind of practice. I chose a different life with a job that funds my art practice and a child. I don’t see this practice anywhere—I see artists young and old, child-free, supported by spouses (or their own art), travelling for shows and inspiration, networking, making work after after. And then I look at mine, cramped with responsibilities and starved of “something” (I don’t have a name for it at yet).

My art practice, although precious like a pearl, is just individual pearls in a trinket tray.

So what do I do?

“More like what ‘can’ you do, Mansi?” The brain diva is up. I better hurry.

I’m going to take a break. From art. And stop forcing output. And move all art supplies out of my sight.

My daughter will get more of me. Not distracted presence—the real kind. More cardboard crowns and magnetic animal houses. More washing vegetable together and potty training tussles. More scavenger hunts and spontaneous dance parties.

My TBR pile will get more underlines and dog-ears too. I’ve dedicated a few pages of my journal for noting down thoughts and phrases that make me feel like lightning just hit me.

My pending bead weaving project—turning my favourite quotes into patterns using Morse code—hopefully, will get done.

I'll probably spiral more too. It's a skill I've honed. What about the future? What if I pursue art full-time and still can't make anything? What if this isn't a phase but a personality trait? The brain diva has questions.

But I’m done spiralling for tonight. So, I’m going to bed with a plan to be in a space where I’m not in performance mode. Like I detach myself from my work and toddler, I’m detaching myself from art (and quietly waiting for the muse to download Google Maps).

What if I trusted the quiet the way I trust the busy?

Maybe next week the signal returns. Maybe the week after. Maybe I’ll carve something small, imperfect, just to remember the motion. Or maybe the quiet has more to teach me first.

I’ll try to learn a new kind of trust.

This post reminded me of something I wrote in 2019 (not 100% what I’m feeling, but close):

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

एक कोने में हूँ मैं और मकान ये खली है
जो दीवारें कभी सोच से जड़ी थीं आज वो सवाली हैं 
झूलते खिड़की के पल्ले गप्पों में पूछते मेरा पता 
उन्हें ये कौन बताये वहीं कोने में मैं हूँ पड़ा 
वह दहलीज़ जिस पर कभी पांव की भी जगह ना थी 
आज आवाज़ लगा लगाकर थकी सुस्त पड़ी है

ना कोई आया ना गया, फिर सब चोरी कैसे हुआ? 
दर दरवाज़ों की इसपर पुरज़ोर बहस छिड़ी है 
फर्श ढूंढता झूमर को, और छत खोजती रंगोली 
कमरे में संगीत तो छोड़ो एक मकड़जाल भी नहीं 
औरों से क्या गिला करूँ, अब तक कोने में क्यों हूँ 
बरसों पहले हुआ लापता और खुद को खोजा खुद मैंने नहीं

This wasn’t the polished post I’d planned. This is the night unravelling. The “felt cute, might delete later” essay. So, we’ll see how cute we feel in the morning.

Ciao!

I’d love to hear from other artists: what do you do when you can’t make?

Not the standard advice—I’ve listed what I’ve tried above. But if you have something different: one tiny practice, one mindset shift, one thing you stopped doing that helped. I’m listening.

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