The World Needs Your Art

No creative friends to cheer you on? No problem?

We Need Your Art (WNYA) is a repeated gentle nudge for anyone hoarding their creative dreams in their heads where no one can see them.

Finished: 31 December 2026
Format: Hardcover

What’s in it

For the closeted creative with a mind full of excuses, WNYA is a lifetime of perfectly-crafted pep talks designed to dispel every “yeah, but” you can possibly scrounge up. It’s written by a novelist, though not specifically for us; visual and performance artists can get just as much out of it.

What I love about WNYA is it’s filled with research and wisdom that’s beneficially at any stage of your creative practice without being prescriptive. There are entire sections for alleviating self-doubt, creative blocks, and setting yourself up for consistent growth and success—materially (you deserve to get paid!) and emotionally (you are not your work and that’s a good thing!)

Who this is for: Creatives who are ready to start living the dream

Who it isn’t for: AI prompters, dropshippers, and people looking to art as a “get rich quick” scheme

What I learned

I can proudly say that the only times I feel shame are 1) when I hurt a friend’s feelings (strangers are fine; they probs deserved it) and 2) when my writing sucks.

I started reading WNYA while in the throes of convincing myself to restart my manuscript. Again. Any one of my last few writing woes would feel right at home in a therapy session:

“My characters are my babies; I couldn’t stomach them being misunderstood. My writing style is weak. I picked the wrong protagonist. This isn’t how Scott Lynch did it, and he looks like he knows what he’s about. I need to research more. This book is too ambitious. This story isn’t horny enough for the TikTok era.”

If you’re prone to shame spirals, there are entire chapters dedicated to self-censorship, perfectionism, and the terror of finishing what you start. And if you spend too much time online—and I really hope you don’t—this book will convince you to log tf off until you’re ready and listen to your body instead of the dull hum of weird creatives making up rules to keep each other miserable.

My big lesson, something I’ve been working on since the day I read it, is that putting yourself in your art means offering up your worldview, emotions, joy, trauma, and everything that makes you you. Not everybody’s going to “get it.” You’re committing to a horrifying level of vulnerability, and that’s something to celebrate every time you succeed in putting words on the page (or whatever art you do!)

ND-friendly?

Yes! Unlike the wall of text I just wrote above, McNee designed this book with so many pullquotes and resources that make it easy to binge. I blazed through WNYA in two weeks.

Bottom line

• Buy it if you’re ready to start making art but are scared/don’t know where to start.
• Skip it if you’ve never needed a creative pep talk in your life. (Good for you! Seriously.)
• Side note: McNee often mentions Your Brain on Art, which goes extensively into the neuroscience and benefits of creativity. It’s been sitting on my shelf for months now and is now next on my TBR. Might be interesting to you, too.