The Artist's Path...

The other day, my wife Helene asked me how artists do it.  How do we spend weeks, months, or even years painting a picture, writing a song, or penning a novel, only to then wait for an audience that may never come?  Her question arose from concern for our ongoing podcast, "Legacy - A Novel Writing Experience," which is three episodes into it's first season and, so far, hasn't garnered too much attention.

Well, Helene's point is a fair one.  There are few guarantees in an artist's life.  I know that first hand.  I've written sixteen novels and, so far, have published only half of them!  The rest sit on a shelf, unwanted and, for the most part, unread.  Is that frustrating?  Sure.  Is that heartbreaking?  Sometimes.  Does it make me want to give up?

Never.

In his masterful novel "The Agony and Ecstasy," Irving Stone writes, "One should not become an artist because he can, but because he must. It is only for those who would be miserable without it.”  I completely relate to that sentiment.  I don't write novel after novel, often with little or no certainty that it will be published, out of choice so much as compulsion.  I have stories in me and they have to come out, period.  I know that may sound silly, even ridiculous, to someone who's never felt that level of creative drive.  But you hard core writers out there ... you get me. 

Art isn't a rational choice.  If an artist ever stops and asks, "Hey, what's my cost/benefit ratio here?" he or she will immediately put down their pen, abandon their canvas, or switch off the computer and go get a job at Starbucks.  As I've told many a would-be author: if you're in this to get rich, stop now.  The fact is that very, very few of us ever make a living from our writing.  I know a number of professional authors, some much more successful than myself, who live hand-to-mouth because the paying side of this business is so utterly unreliable.  It's simply a reality that, for the time being, we scriveners must accept.

Why?  Well, because we'd be miserable without it.

So, we celebrate our small successes and, when failure strikes (as it does all too often), she shake ourselves and try again, and again, and again.  

As for our podcast, I'm not worried.  Everything I've read about podcasts and podcast listeners tells me that we need to have at least a full season under our belt before we can expect any real attention.  In the meantime, we're putting out a new episode every two weeks on the hope and prayer of someday garnering an audience who will enjoy the fruits of our efforts as much as we do.

Because that, my friends, is the artist's path.  And we walk it with pride.
​