Alright, so I’m not going to lie: the lack of feedback on my novel has been disappointing, which really sucks because the feedback that I have received has been incredibly helpful. I feel it’s important to establish that I wasn’t looking for glowing reviews and unending praise. I mean obviously that would have been nice, but what I really wanted was some sign that it was anything other than unremarkable.
An artist’s worst fear isn’t rejection; it’s indifference. The sole purpose of art is to provoke a reaction in its audience, be it admiration, fear, awe, disgust or anything else. To have your work accepted without a sound is like having the word “unremarkable” written across your forehead. Unremarkable. Not good, not bad, just… unremarkable.
Whoever invented the “like” button clearly wasn’t an artist, because no artist in their right mind would ever settle for something as curt and hollow as a “like” in response to their work. “How does it make you feel?” Like. “What do you think the message is?” Like. “What does it mean to you?” Like.
Like. Like, I liked it, but not enough to go into depth about what I thought of it. Or, yeah, I didn’t really like it, but to say that would be rude, so Like.
And what’s so wrong with saying you didn’t like it? That’s good! It means there’s a reason you didn’t like it, and once you tell them they can address the problem! Can you imagine if no one gave constructive criticism? If schoolteachers simply gave all assignments back with a “thumbs-up” stamp on the front? We would never learn from our mistakes! We would never be able to fix what’s wrong, to grow as individuals.
I feel kind of stupid complaining about this, but I created this blog so that I could have somewhere to unload my thoughts, and this has been bothering me for a while now. I’m so sick of people biting their metaphorical tongues just because they’re afraid of offending someone.
Before all this I felt alone, stranded on an island with only my thoughts to keep me company and no one to share them with. I had all these things I had to say and no one I felt I could say them to, so when I found this place and these people you can imagine the relief I felt in my heart. I’d finally found somewhere I could speak my mind and have other people do the same, a place where the silence didn’t exist.
Please don’t take that away from me now.
The Modern Leper. 