YOU CAN’T PLEASE EVERYONE.  Although we find ways to embrace this logical concept into our every day lives, knowing full well it would drive us crazy if we didn’t – being an artist of any sort, comes with the pitfall.

We are going to be critiqued.  As an author, I’m going to be critiqued.

Painters, sculptors, writers and poets, all share this vexation.

We want to please everyone.

When someone looks at our work, and judges it inferior on some merit they hold works to, we are left to wonder where we fell short.

The problem is one that cannot be solved.

Not everyone that reads our work, is going to find it satisfying.

Not everyone who evaluates our paintings and sculptures are going to find them flawless.

Our art has to be personal.

Of course, there will be those who disapprove.  They will look at the “mainstream” and what generally appeals to many and can most likely bring fame and fortune.  And there are those who willingly go that way – some finding that elusive fame and fortune, most struggling like the rest of us anyway.

At the end of the day, when I produce my art, write my books, I want to look back at it assured I did the best I could and approve of my work.  If a thousand people applaud but I don’t like it – what was the point?

When I started writing, producing my art, it came from a deeper place than a desire for fame and wealth.

While those things would be nice, it wasn’t the reason I started writing.

I find that many will call certain books “classic” but not all agree they are great.

I wonder how many call ‘War and Peace” a classic but have never read it – and if they tried to read it, would change their opinion of it.

“Well, Prince, Genoa, and Lucca are now no more than private estates of the Bonaparte family.  No, I warn you, that if you do not tell me we are at war, if you again allow yourself to palliate all the infamies and atrocities of this Antichrist (upon my word I believe he is), I don’t know you in future, you are no longer my friend, no longer my faithful slave, as you say.  There, how do you do, how do you do?  I see I’m scaring you, sit down and talk to me.”

There are many fans of the Lord of the Rings films.  I wonder how many have actually read the books.

When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.

And there is the Game of Thrones tv series, based on the George R.R. Martin books, A Song of Ice and Fire.

“We should start back,” Gared urged as the woods began to grow dark around them.  “The wildlings are dead.”
“Do the dead frighten you?” Ser Waymar Royce asked with just a hint of a smile.

Or how about John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.

“To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth.  The plows crossed and recrossed the rivulet marks.  The last rains lifted the corn quickly and scattered weed colonies and grass along the sides of the roads so that the gray country and the dark red country began to disappear under a green cover.”

The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas.

On the first Monday of the month of April, 1626, the market-town of Meung, in which the author of the “Romance of the Rose” was born, appeared to be in as perfect sense a state of revolution as if the Huguenots had just made a second Rochelle of it.

Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall

The British are frequently criticized by other nations for their dislike of change, and indeed we love England for those aspects of nature and life which change the least.  Here in the West Country, where I was born, men are slow of speech, tenacious of opinion, and averse – beyond their countrymen elsewhere – to innovation of any sort.

Everyone has their own peculiar tastes when it comes to art and while there may appear to be a consensus of what reaches and touches a majority of people, it can’t reach everyone.

The books I like to read, many others would not.

The art I enjoy appreciating, many others will look over without notice or thought.

Artists need to embrace the futility of trying to please everyone.

Reach deep within yourself and find what it is you want to read, hear, and see.  Allow it to come out of you without any regard for what others make think of it.’

When the day is over and the piece is complete – sit back and judge.

If it pleases you, if your heart is warmed and feels this is a worthy part of you ready to go out in the world, let it go.  You won’t touch everyone.  There are plenty of people who won’t see what you see, hear what you hear.

But there will be some.  And most of all – there will be you.

With or without success, admiration and accolades, you are connected to that work forever.  And that’s what all art is about.

“The arts are not a way to make a living.  They are a very human way of making life more bearable.  Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow.”  – Kurt Vonnegut

If you are interested in reading my art, follow the link below – read The Crystal Crux series, and let me know what you think.

Click Here for The Crystal Crux : Betrayal