Today I got the best writing advice from a very unexpected source.

Hello writers. I hope you’re all having a good day. I made a post like 2-3 months ago and everyone was very very helpful and I got a lot of good advice. I wanted to do something with what you all told me. It would have been a waste to just ignore it.<br><br>I’m an English major and a psychology minor and I’m in this beautiful stage of my life where I’m doing research and experimenting before I graduate. I’ve been doing a lot of research in the field of psycholinguistics and psychophysics and I spent hours upon hours at my university’s library just reading. <br><br>I’ve recently started volunteering at a fairly big gallery here in my city. It’s for contemporary art and I have the honor of getting to act as a sort of docent and giving guided tours for groups whenever they want a tour. I’ve actually gotten very good at this. I get a lot of compliments. The gallery owners are happy with me. Everything works out. <br><br>My time is divided between classes, my mental health, my job, and these two things which I have recently started and have grown to love very very deeply. I would get lost in my research. It was pouring out of my pores. I loved it. I also started loving the gallery and the art so much. I had found a better way to live in the world. It was wonderful. <br><br>So I still make time to write, because I have to write. I write all the time. I have a bunch of projects and I work on them every day. I’m a little behind but I’m still making good progress. However, I was struggling with a project in particular. This project was close to my heart, it was to do with the museum, and I had a lot of trouble writing it. I wrote a draft. It was terrible. I couldn’t get over it. I couldn’t figure out where to go from that draft. I was so frustrated and defeated. <br><br>I was thinking about this at the gallery last night as I was giving a tour. I was talking to the group and I had a question. It was an odd question and I thought it would be a funny thing to bring up. <br><br>I was talking about some paintings and sculptures and I asked the group- do you think that the artists who create these contemporary works of art could have done this if they didn’t have the experiences of every artist who came before them? Do you think they could have painted what they painted if they didn’t know what the Mona Lisa looked like? If they didn’t know anything about Picasso or Van Gogh or Monet? <br><br>And one of the older gentlemen in the group was smiling at me and he had the look of revelation in his eyes. And I was just about to finish the tour and then he stood up, looked me in the eyes, and said: “I think there’s no such thing as an original idea. I think what we have is people who are capable of bridging gaps in different ways. And the more bridges we discover, the more we can cross them, and maybe we can get somewhere new. But if you look, you’ll see that a lot of the things that are considered original ideas are the result of putting a few bridges together in a way that nobody else thought of. Art doesn’t become old. It just becomes more like a bridge that we’ve crossed so often that it doesn’t make us feel anything anymore. Most people don’t like to cross bridges that are old and rickety. But real artists can see where those bridges lead and will cross them again. And if you’re lucky, you can see across the bridge too.”<br><br>It sounds like something out of a novel, I know. But it happened. And I don’t even remember that man’s name. I’m sure I’ll never see him again but I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to make it across all the bridges I can find. And I’m going to do my best to make real art. <br><br>But the best part of this is that I figured out how to change my draft. I figured out where I’m stuck. The bridges I’m crossing, I realize now, are ones that so many other people have crossed before me that I’m not even getting to the edge of it in my draft. So I’m going to rewrite it. I’m going to make it real. I’m going to cross the bridge and see what’s on the other side.<br><br>Thank you, kind stranger. Thank you, fellow writers from here. Thank you, art lovers. <br><br>Edit: I think I should mention here that the first post is over in r/confession. It was a post about how I cheated on an assignment in high school. I apologize for not making that clear. If you want to read it you can find it on my profile. I’m actually working on a short story based off of that right now and it should be up in the next week or 2. <br><br>Edit #2: Thank you all for your kind words and strong support. It’s very humbling and I’m grateful to have been able to touch so many people. I think it’s very important that, especially in this day and age, we see humanity in each other. I’m confident that we all have the power to change the world a little bit.