Why there so many sucky blogs and artists.

Blogging's not easy. It often feels like you're actually haveing to write something for an audience.

I've been reading a lot of business blogs lately and am struck with the number of posts that suck. (Not like this one.) While I  enjoy blogging I've come to realize that the actual writing is less than exciting. It reminds me of my artist days. As an artist you must be very comfortable being alone. All my paintings (almost all) we're created entirely by myself, in my studio, while I was working late at night and alone. Everyone thinks that the act of creation is exciting and fulfilling, and it is. But the joy of creation comes at the beginning and the end.

click to enlargeA painting is exciting at conception and fullfilling at completion. The actual act is not usually enjoyable at all. In fact it's rather tedious. The Jackson Pollock style of throwing paint on a canvas is not my experience. As a realist, I've spent countless hours painting and repainting. This is a painting I worked off and on for a year. (Total full time of maybe 3-4 weeks.) It's big. 5 by 6 feet.

During my artist years I met, and still know, hundreds of "artists" and came to a realization. The reason there are so many shitty artists is that people fall in love with 'being' and artist, not 'doing' the art. It's usually not that fun to craft something. The real joys come during the initiation of a work, and after it's completed and you're accepting your due adulation.

I think there's a parallel with many of the blogs that are coming online. Business bloggers know they need to post regularly, provide content for the search engines, and work in some key phrases and words for their SEO. But it becomes more of an excercise than a labor of love. It's like writing a never-ending book report.

Now this is a new blog. It's got no rank. In fact, it's not yet been submitted to any search engines. I'd like to build a little content first and make it worth linking to. So I'm aware that there will be few readers in the near future. (Maybe someone will read the archives in the future.) 

But someone needs to read it in order to make writing it worthwhile. So I'll 'endevor to perservere' (That's a line from The Outlaw Josey Wales.) and try to embrace the process of writing content that's worth reading. Cross your fingers.