Yukime-no-lady

Wow, over a thousand views! That feels like a lot. Thanks for reading or for passing by. If you left a comment or a fave, double thank you.

This also got me thinking about talent and recognition.

I think one of the hardest thing for an artist to accept is that not everybody is going to like you. Some people will be indifferent, a few might even hate it, an even lesser number might hate with passion. This is reasonable, of course, nobody can be like a bar of gold and be liked by everybody.

So, I wonder and I have long wondered: how do you know if what you do is good? How do you know if you have talent or whatever you'd like to call that little something that makes a work more than just some words on a piece of paper (or a computer screen)?

It's a thought that scares me. Of course, first of all, you yourself need to have faith in your work, but I don't think that art is made to be hidden away. It is to be shared, to be amazed at, to be inspired by and it is made to be loved. The art you make you want to share, even if you are afraid of criticism. You want people to like what you do. I want my words to be read. I want them to be liked, and the idea that they might not be is frightening. The art I make is not fully mine and is not fully outside of myself, it is a transitional space between my own psyche and other people. To criticize my art is to criticize a part of me, so, yes, it hurts, even if I know it is necessary.

This is one of the things that scare me (and hence one of those I whine about) - how do I know if I am any good? You might win a contest, might get published, but does that mean you're good? Does that mean those stories will be remembered and read even after the author is gone?

The scariest thing is the answer, though. People might like my work or hate it, or, even worst, they might be indifferent. But truth is, I have to know that my words are good. They are not good because people like them, they are good because they are mine. They are unique, and nobody else could have written them. They have value in themselves, as any art does. Maybe they aren't good enough for others, but they should be good enough for me (not to say I shouldn't grow and improve, though).

Now the thing is, I have to believe in this.

I have a tumblr. I don't have any good, valid or interesting reasons to have a tumblr, but I do. It's IceVolvagia101's fault. I had no idea tumblr even existed before her devilishly good one.

So, my tumblr is alaina-the-bard.tumblr.com. Take a look around, it's one day old, but soon to be full of Doctor Who, Sherlock, random things and my very own ramblings! Isn't that exciting?

Interesting things, the empty spaces. They are bothersome to look at, so one will try to fill them up, since that is what any emptiness demands by the mere fact of its existence: to become something. Some voids already have a set shape and won't accept surrogates; only that one and only thing that can make the nothing go away. And if for whatever reason the void can't become full, when the other option is to deny it. Don't look and for a while you can pretend it is no longer there. But the emptiness can't stay like that forever...

The philosophical musings of above all lead to the simple, self-evident conclusion that the blank space titled journal on the right of my gallery is finally being written upon. Yay!

In other news, Neil Gaiman is very awesome. In particular, "A Study in Emerald", which made me ridiculously happy. So, yay to that too!