Me and H.P., Part Two
Evidence is a confusing thing. Me and H.P. know that well.
Faced with broad public indifference and limited fan retention, an artist might decide that what he is doing is not up to snuff for the long haul.
But based on what we know about art in the long haul, that judgment could just as easily be false. A large number of artists remain obscure until their deaths, and their works live on far longer than those of their contemporaries who were more popular during their lives.
We also know that sometimes an artist does not find their proper milieu until after years of chasing down wrong paths. H.P. Lovecraft, for example, focused on ineffectual verse for most of his life before discovering that prose was his true means of expression.
To complicate matters, I have online followers who have never bought anything I’ve created. If one is popular for the things that one says, but not for the art that one produces, perhaps a change of direction is warranted. Or perhaps an augementation of focus.
This is difficult to do, however, when the art has turned into the sole means of income. I sought this career path in the midst of clinical anxiety and depression, hoping to find paying creative work that would keep me from going insane. It’s still a work in progress, of course, but the farther I go down the original creative route I’ve been charting all these years, the returns have not increased substantially.
And yet I have works yet unreleased whose quality I don’t question, and the only way to get them out is to apply the time available to me when I don’t work meaningless dayjobs 40 hours a week. I don’t feel I can move on to the projects that are less certain until I make sure I’ve gotten the best of my current incarnation out into the world. And that will take some time.
Some of it is time allotment. I used to work later into the night on things rather than unwind with a movie, but that left me sleepless very often as well. A year of self-employment has put me in danger of taking for granted the very fact that I can work on these things instead of finding instant gratification the “normal” ways.
But I have to relax sometime. I tried running 24/7 the first couple of months on my own, and it was plainly unsustainable. Especially when the result of the work is uncertain.
And that’s really the crux. I spent so much time on the first installments of my work, and then upon release, got a lot of enthusiasm, but almost no money. The completion of the projects just doesn’t seem as urgent to me as it did when I believed they would be my sustaining income.
Which brings us to another Lovecraft parallel. After his best work was rejected numerous times, he lost the will to create. I am experiencing a similar conundrum. What’s it for? Posterity, I suppose, but I have to live this life now. Shall I pour all my energies into things which will not bear fruit until I’m no longer around? Perhaps that will be good for my son, but I’m not sure if it’s enough for me.
But if not, then what? Back to the office? Back to mind-deadening tedium? That brings me no closer to my goals either.
I won’t get my ideal situation, which is to take some time off from my current projects and work on the new ideas I’ve got percolating. For all I know, those are the things that will finally bring the best of me out. Perhaps the indifference I’m hearing is justified because I haven’t found my true voice.
Or maybe that voice is speaking right now to ears that won’t hear it until my death has convinced them of my artistic worthiness. Worse, maybe the most receptive ears haven’t even been born yet.
But of course that’s a convenient theory for many artists to explain away their lack of success. Sometimes the truth is far more simple: Close, no cigar.
In any case, what does it mean for me? I’m not really sure. But it worries me.
“It takes a worried man to sing a worried song
I’m worried now, but I won’t be for long…”
- A Worried Man (traditional)
“Could have given up so easily
I was a few cheap shots away from the end of me
Taken for granted
most everything
that I would have died for
Just yesterday…”
- Paramore, Looking Up