Originally posted here.
Maybe a theme for my stuff with Bleeding Fool is to show how audacious common sense can be. I’d rather folks be upset with me than with one another; let me be the villain that unites all the heroes.
I know a current issue is writers putting too much of their own thoughts and feelings into their characters, but artists are no less culpable there. Legs go nowhere by themselves and torsos go nowhere without legs. Writers gotta write about what they know, but when they limit their life experiences they end up repeating themselves at best. Older artists, the sorts who have experienced art outside of comics, often keep boxes and boxes of old Nat Geos and architectural magazines, as on-hand reference and study guides for where their knowledge lacked. Writers who want to be convincing need to entertain more than what they believe in too.
But I think today even the reboots are archaic, because everyone has their own personal continuity of the characters anyway from what books they could afford over the years. Like here’s a ton of pieces, make whatever puzzle you want of it. Everybody hates fan-fiction, we’ve been joking that writers of the last 20 or 30 years are redoing their favorite stories, but really the pubs are pushing all readers to fan-fic any sense from the output. And, as uncredited co-authors, readers want their own thoughts and feelings represented and prioritized or there will be hell to pay buddy.
Everyone could be cool about fellow indie creators finding some fanfare and leave the pissing contests to the cowboys who don’t have deadlines in their lives. Everybody in the USA would prefer getting defensive over the thoughts and feelings of others, instead of putting *any* iota of thought or feeling into what they themselves say or do in this life. There is a giant leap between the state of being a helpless passenger that Maynard sang about, and being a mindless voyeur.
Let your work or the collection of what you support or cultivate in life do your talking for you, but know that creating for fame or fortune or just for rent money is different from creating for yourself. And if there’s no interest for it, that is not a crime or a sin, because nobody’s thoughts or feelings can be the priority or responsibility of anyone else, not in a free society. When I most needed help I was rendered completely invisible to everyone I have ever known, and I survived without. So don’t be an adolescent insisting that your survival depends on being loved. It does not.
If free speech encompasses freedom of expression, that still does not guarantee either an audience or acceptance, and that’s alright, because mandating acceptance of a given thing is not what self-determination or self-reliance is about. After 9/11, people were more prone to vote *against* someone than for someone explicitly. That got normalized into status quo, so now we see it seeped into creative industries. Which is weird, because who needs marketing anymore, when everything is defined by its competition rather than its own merit or mettle? More often than not, books flop not because of political, religious or social beliefs per se, but because of the lack in interest by thoughts and feelings competing for dominance. And that’s alright, because in accordance with a free market it means the audiences were allowed to decide for themselves what they wanted to support or not. Not everything is personal. There is a whole universe beyond our respective groins.
I was telling the editorial master of chains here Chris how making new enemies and twisting knives is a terrible way to solve problems, as it’s done nothing but create problems in the DC that adults refer to. If we have no principles or convictions then we have no foundation to build from, no matter your pursuits of happiness. But if your principles or convictions leave a backdoor for contradictions, then your foundation is as unstable as the law of the jungle, where the lack of reason defines all standards for the world around it. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder and justice is blind, then law and order are not about what feels good for anyone, not in theory. None should have the ability to force others into liking or disliking what they do, and if there’s not some objective standard of law and order for us all to abide by then there is no canvas to flesh our livelihoods from. I am free to write these words or not, Bleeding Fool is free to publish these words or not, and you are free to read these words or not, with none of us making that decision for any other as we would hate for those decisions to be made on our own behalf, against our free will.
Define and refine what you create and what you collect as befitting what’s in your mind’s eye or the heart on your snot-covered sleeve, but trust others could or should do no less. Nobody thinks of consequences in this society, only rewards. The people who need you in their lives could probably use a soldier more than a trophy hunter anyhow. If you genuinely want to create or collect or cultivate for the benefit or entertainment of others then do the work, and leave the reviews to chumps. But if you’re in it for yourself, don’t be shocked and awed when none are falling over themselves to shake your hand.
Be shocked they tracked you down to this lesbian bar in the first place.