Blog No. 17
Remember when I said something about when people hate what they make. You might not because it was back before the rebirth of the blog, so you would have had to have gone back and read the old posts. If you have, thanks, I like you too. If you haven’t, it’s cool. We’re still friends, but I think you should go back and read some of the old posts. I noticed that they aren’t as long as the newer ones. I also remember them as being more work too. That’s not so say I don’t like them. In fact I really like a couple of them; the one about Falling like a Movie Star and Rejected Hugs come to mind (Falling was oddly my most popular post).
I think we all have a friend or two who seems to hate everything they do. I have several and I have never understood it. Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of things I have written that I would rather burry under the ocean than have people read them, but there are a lot more that have something I really like about them. The whole piece might not be good, but there is usually and idea a sentence or description that I am really proud of, something that I can maybe use in a future story.
I’m not saying that I don’t go back and reread what I write and find big errors that have to be fixed. That is all part of the creative process. You have an idea, you create your art (whether it is writing, painting, music or whatever) and then you go back and rework it, to make it better. If, after doing all of that, you can’t find anything redeeming about what you have made, why would you continue to do it (and then bitch about it to everyone)? Obviously you can only get good by failing over and over (and over and over) again, but that doesn’t mean the whole piece is a failure.
I suppose that some people are just whiners and like the attention. They want people to rush to defend the work, telling them that it’s “really good” and “you are too hard on yourself”. I know I have my own struggles to not play the martyr (I think many people do), but I have made an honest effort to be realistic about what I write and to expect constructive criticism from my friends, not pandering (though sometimes it is nice to hear the pandering). It isn’t always easy to hear, and it is even more difficult to not argue, but if you don’t like anything about your art already any criticism will shatter your ego. Come to think of it, if you don’t like your art, why would you show anyone in the first place?
My point (I think I have a point) is that it is ok to realize that you have a long way to go before your art is any good, some artists say you never stop trying to make something good, but those people who don’t like anything about what they make may have something wrong with them. And if they still show it to people in hopes that they will be told you how great they are, there is definitely something wrong with them.
Ben Van Dongen 