Somehow, in this world of binge watchers, Superfans, Cos-players, and streaming services, many artists and creatives still struggle to legitimise their practice, even to themselves. While few would debate the importance of The Arts as entertainment for the masses, the world often doesn’t want to give creatives space for exploration early in their ‘career’ especially if they’re making something outside the accepted boundaries.
That is…. If they’re not already making a bundle of money from their art.
When I started blogging a couple of years back, another newbie blogger got in contact. He wanted to work together to some extent to build our blogs. We vibed on a lot of levels but he pretty much stopped writing within a few months because it wasn’t working for him, aka he wasn’t making any money. He couldn’t get the support he needed to continue as his family had given him a strict fiscal deadline.
They told him he had to be making $100 a week from blogging within six months or had had to give up.
This made me so sad because as far as I know, nothing great ever came that simply. I’ve been writing daily now for more than six years and I’m making nothing from this blog. I sell a book every few days if I’m lucky.
So why do I keep doing it?
I write because I love writing. I am very fortunate to have a day job. This gives me the time to write but a book or a blog or a short story can be written in ten minutes a day as long as that ten minutes is consistently given over to writing day after day, month after month.
My writing practice has produced more than the million+ words I’ve smashed out. I’ve also found a network of friends in fellow authors both irl and online.
Apart from writing, I am passionate about encouraging others to create whether through writing or painting or cooking or growing a garden or any one of the millions of way humans express themselves.
That’s what this blog started life as, a way to communicate with others that their art, whatever form it takes, is essential for the world.
You have a yearning to create, you have that artistic gift, for a reason.
That reason might not be anything to do with making money from your work. I happen to think you owe it to humanity to express your gifts but you get to decide what’s important to you.
A friend I met on Instagram told me I inspired her to start writing her second book. I cried.
I wrote the following words on 10 January, 2019 in a post called Ripples.
Nothing in life has any inherent meaning – we give meaning to our lives through our own thoughts. Sometimes we take on rituals and beliefs that have had meaning to others, but eventually, I believe, we all stop and ask ourselves what has meaning for me?
How wonderful to think that through our creativity we make better the lives around us. Even better to think we may inspire others to make something of their own.
IT’S ALL THOSE RIPPLES, THOSE TENDRILS OF VINE THAT GROW OUT FROM US AND END UP …WHO KNOWS WHERE.
Doing something that feeds our soul can’t help but touch the souls of those who experience our creation. We just don’t know who or how or why our art will inspire.
But even that is not the point.
This isn’t about validation, or accolades, those little ‘best-seller’ banners on Amazon or Likes on Instagram.
The first person we inspire by using our creativity is ourselves. And it is addictive. The more you make, the more you want to make.
I really don’t think it’s just me.
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