Last week’s Quote of the Day by George Bernard Shaw got me to thinking about the dark forces behind the creative process. I believe every artist tries to work out unresolved issues in their lives through their art. Tom Petty, Robin Williams, David Sedaris, and Stephen King, just to name a few, sought redemption from childhood pain in their work. Would the sparks between Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler have been so believable had Margaret Mitchell not been abandoned by her first husband? I doubt it.

And yet, the best artists don’t just shake their fists at a cruel, unjust world; they create something that breathes and moves. Their pain drives them to create art that inspires people. The focus of great art is not the author but the audience.

Stand-up comic Tiffany Haddish learned this lesson from none other than Richard Pryor when she was performing at the Laugh Factory Comedy Camp:

I was on the stage telling jokes and he says, “Stop! Stop! What are you doing?” I said, “I’m telling a joke,” and he says, “No, you’re not!” He said, “Look, people don’t come to comedy shows because they want to hear about your problems, or politics or religion. They come to have fun, so when you’re on stage, you need to be having fun. If you’re having fun, the audience is having fun.” And then as I got older I started realizing, “Oh man, I’m trying to do this in everything in life because once I started having fun onstage, you know, people were nice to me. People were kind; it was easier to move forward.”

As George Bernard Shaw advised, “Be a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.” Tiffany Haddish was lucky enough to learn this from one of the comic greats. The same lesson applies to writers.