The Good, The Great, The Rest

I don't think anyone that enjoys doing something ever wants to wander down the dark road of whether they are actually good at it. In art school (and I'll willingly admit I went to one of those school where there was no admission test), it was never more apparent that some people just weren't up to muster. Even though anyone could get in, the class list dwindled rather noticeably over the years-- so much so that I felt like I was playing the Nintendo classic Friday the 13th, watching that survivor count drop into the single digits.

This generation will never know the horror that these graphics once caused.

I started with about 50 new students. My virtual graduation consisted of 4. Now I know that a lot of things could account for graduation not synchronizing.  Classes that were failed and had to be retaken (ffs, you have to pay to retake so failing was too rich for my blood), frequency of classes by semester. I had opted to take 2 or 3 classes per semester rather than the minimum of 1. It was usually two academic requirements or 1 academic requirement and 1 demanding art concentration. Never 2 art intensive classes unless I approved of the workload. Nevertheless, I watched my fellow Dean's/President's listers, always looked at the roster for familiar names and I would notice that people tapered off over time, falling off of all lists with regretful finality.

I hate to say it, but sometimes I could see why. Some of these hopeful artists should have been informed of their chances to actually make it in their chosen field.  Private schools really don't give a shit though, they just see dollar signs. During class projects where we would have to draw concepts for digital work? They were subpar even for six year olds let alone adults. I'm being unfair because it wasn't the skill level of their art that tanked them-- it was the failure to communicate their ideas that made them unpassable. You can be plenty creative, but your chosen outlet has to make sense. You are an interpreter in that medium so you must chose that aptitude wisely.

Most people can improve with practice, but practically, you need more than passion to compete. Plenty of artists end up not publishing because of that fear that they are blindsided to any lack of skill for it but can still enjoy it. There are also those delusional ones that have ego far exceeding their talent and through some miracle of mediocrity, even manage to become filthy rich for sucking at any actual skill in that area.

So it's confusing. What makes something good or great is hard to pinpoint or gauge when things that suck can clearly enjoy success as well.

I like to take quotes and put my own addendum to their truth in my experience...

 

My last post was about putting aside doubts because all of us have them. It's a sad truth that in a market overrun with mediocrity, there are also just as many people who don't know they have something great and never taken the plunge. People like me have no clue which side of the line they fall on. I will gladly admit that my first book needs a little TLC, but at the same time, I know it's a solid piece of storytelling even with the novice beginning I put to it over a decade ago. Why did I not rewrite it if I had my doubts? I spent a decade on it, so why wouldn't I want it to be the best?

At some point, we have to decide whether something is ready to go out into the world or if we should just scrap it because it's far too imperfect to represent our egos. In my case, it was time to release it for all its flaws and move on.  It's not for fear of wasting it into obscurity.  Whether or not it's to the market's taste, I gave zero fucks. It's not because it's nine books of wasted time. It's because I read the thing time and time again and despite any doubts telling me it wasn't ready... I read the damn things multiple times. 

I don't know about you, but my favorite stories by other authors rarely get read more than three times. I read my stories more times than I could count, sometimes critically hating them, other times unable to get that I actually wrote that amazing shit. Somewhere in the middle was the truth of it. I'm not terrible! I tell stories that I want to revisit and I had to share.

I'm not worried about tainting my 'brand'. Maybe at first I worried over that far more than I should have. If you read one thing I've done and hated it, it's not an indication that you should avoid all I do. I'm not going to keep milking one idea or concept unless I attain a fanbase that demands work that I've done and loved. Look at the top prolific authors, the consistent best sellers and their body of work. The most successful were also plenty adventurous, writing just as many hated stories for all of the beloved entries. Most of them aren't one-trick ponies. They're as curious as they are eclectic. 

Most of us observe and think that we have to pound out market-pleasers to establish the privilege of writing whatever we want, but please see the folly of that thinking. Your niche could very well plop you into the popularity of a genre you actually despise. How much money could keep you persisting in that misery?  I don't know about you, but it wouldn't last for me. I'd plunge into a state of infamy for turning my back on that faster than a fanbase could actually benefit me. Experts in marketing might have a slightly better chance of it, but I wouldn't waste too much on whatever they think they can guarantee with a persuasive vocabulary. For every leap on trends to make a buck, you get a mysterious silence where I see zero claims to any happiness or real success from thinking they can ride those coattails to a winning formula.  Or we would all do it, naturally. It has little to do with talent, little to do with quality. If making a living at writing were really so easy, wouldn't we all cough up a little integrity on that cheesy bestseller and then coast on the proceeds to write what we really want?

Even those prolific bestsellers, once again, haven't been able to attain comfortability without cranking out consistent best sellers.  The truth of most success stories comes with one big thing in common.  Most books only see a heyday within the year of their release. Even the largely successful stories end up collecting pennies in royalties over time because even if they stay on the market, they go the way of cheap mass-market paperbacks, not selling predictably enough to be pre-printed and relegated to dusty warehouses...

But wait... there's self-publishing... For all of its ill-repute (which is also dying off), authors taking matters into their own hands can keep reviving their stories and print-on-demand means that booksellers and libraries aren't afraid to take a risk on the little guys anymore. 

Really, it takes some serious guts to decide your work is worth paying for. Always strive to put out the best possible work, but seriously don't beat yourself up about perfection. Good work can have typos, great work can still have fucking typos.

Focus your efforts on a little bit of everything, but do not lose sight of your creative goals by trying to do a bang-up job at marketing or fiddling too much over the details. People will gush about the importance of quality and in a perfect world, of course that's top priority. However, since no one can agree on what the fuck quality actually amounts to, just work on self-improvement-- strive to do what you can do best.

Shit drawers can become overnight web comic superstars with cheesy relatable short comics and mediocre word dumpsters can become Stephenie Meyer and E.L. Fudge (sorry, James), bestselling authors enjoying undeserved success for having the uncanny ability to make not-thinking an American pastime.

Ravenous superfans: I'll save you the trouble.  I am extremely jealous of success, as evidenced by me sitting over here living one of those terrible, horrible, happy and comfortable lives of a creative with integrity. I don't want fame and I sure as shit don't want the infamy that makes people wonder how much lip service was performed on what genitalia to make such a phenomenon possible. 

For all other types of fans that understand how opinions work: enjoy your bad literature without any judgement on your character from me. Your tastes do not indicate your intelligence or your personality and chances are I can get along with you just fine. We all have guilty pleasures and I might make fun of you sometimes, but let's mostly just agree to disagree and not talk about it. Like religion and politics.  We can probably be friends as long as we keep those skeletons in their respective closets. Really, the only absolute I have found is that people have to have compatible senses of humor.  That's about it.  You pretty much never have to agree on anything else.

In any case, let's end this on a positive note. Be practical about the crazy, crazy world of creativity but don't let other people dictate whether or not you will succeed with your plans. Strange things can happen and regret is far worse to live with than taking a risk that weighs on you to be done. Don't let anything keep you from enjoying your ideas.

Be good, be great, be something else-- just keep at it!