A freelance life, a life in the arts, is sometimes like putting messages in bottles on a desert island, and hoping that someone will find one of your bottle and open it and read it, and put something in a bottle that will wash its way back to you: appreciation, or a commission, or money, or love. And you have to accept that you may put out a hundred things for every bottle that winds up coming back. – Neil Gaiman, “Make Good Art”
Gaiman echoes many other writers when he speaks of the small rewards that come from the work. Richard Hugo says to prepare for a lifetime of disappointments. Rainer Maria Rilke states that the writing life – really, the artistic life – is a solitary one.
The three aren’t trying to discourage people from pursuing the arts; they’re stating the reality of that pursuit. The artistic life requires solitude. Even if in a studio class or a writing workshop, each participant faces the paper or screen alone. The only thing to do, if a person is serious about his or her craft, is to welcome communing and developing a relationship with that page.
The artistic life often is filled with disappointment, too. As Gaiman says, “[Y]ou may put out a hundred things for every bottle that winds up coming back.” Rejection letters abound more than acceptance ones. Some readers are outspoken, vicious critics. A teacher rails and crushes the writer or artist or musician.
The artists continue creating, though, despite the discouragement and disappointment. They know they are meant to create “good art,” and the only way to do that is to fight through the dark times and welcome the solitude. They keep creating because, for every one hundred bottles they send out, there is that one person who needs and will respond to the one hundred and first.
Image: Susanne Nilsson (Creative Commons)