Artistic Damnation

As a creative, one of the percentage of the world's population who were gifted with an artistic talent (of some level) I often wonder are we doomed to live lives struggling to survive, to live.

I have many friends who are creative and much more talented than I am but there comes a time in every artists life when they just want to be able to live from their creations, when I say live.

For some this may mean a mansion in the Buckinghamshire countrysideor perhaps a villa in Miami but to many true artists who create purely because they have to, making a simple and comfortable
living from that work is often the living goal and is very difficult to achieve.

It can become very disheartening when you have spent days, weeks, months or in some cases years creating something you know others would enjoy, only to find on completion very few people seem to care about your creation, unless you already have a big fan base.

For every artist there will be struggles, against society and it's view of the arts, technologies hell bent on destroying the arts by making it possible for people with no talent to create exceptional work to rival that of the artist who has spent 20-30yrs perfecting his/her skill and learning to create.

Then there is the never ending battle to get your work noticed, in a world where every Tom, Dick or Harriet can reach out and promote something.

The customer is overwhelmed with choice and this is a contributory factor as to why your work is overlooked.


It has been a while since I sold any copies of my books and this along with noticing a couple of friends in the same situation
is what has prompted me to write this entry.

I am at war, a dark bloody battlefield between my heart and my head, thoughts of:

"Is my work not good enough",
"Where am I going wrong"
"Why won't anyone review my work"
"Why won't anyone pay for my work"
"How do I prove my work is good enough if no one is reading it"
"When will I get that big break"

I am sure there are millions of others who have these thoughts daily too and unfortunately I have no answers to give to any of the above questions.

All I can say is there is a force within me that drives me to be creative but on some days that force is so weak and all it would take to make it stronger, is another sale or a good review of the hard work I have put in.

This aside I have also started a gofundme page in an attempt to raise £1500 to help get my children's books into school libraries in the West Yorkshire area to begin with, This is a total non profit making enterprise and all money raised will go to purchasing 20 copies for 38 schools in the district, it will also cover postage and redistribution costs.

In the Two days the page has been running it has been shared 7 times on facebook, seven?, I have over 1000 "friends" on my Facebook page and only seven people have shared the post and no one has donated anything...as yet, there is still time and it is early days but this too adds to the menagerie of questions running through my mind "is everything I try to do, doomed to fail" or is it just a case of people don't care what I do, they just aren't interested.

I am no one special but the talents I believe I have are special and should be shared with the world, but there is no point sharing when no one wants it.

I won't give up...no...I can't give up something still fights inside me that "what if" I do know good things can happen to people and I see some of my friends do sell their work (maybe they're just more talented than me, I don't know) maybe one day I won't be underestimated and people will see what I truly am capable of if given the opportunity.

Until then I'll keep battling on until I'm either beaten or I win.