Making art is a lonely business. Hell, being alive is a lonely business.
I have been swimming in tweets and nice e-mails from people discovering my work via the 20×200 prints. It’s pretty wonderful. And disorienting. And a major high.
But it will taper off. And next week I will have a dark day when I want to quit, when I wonder why the heck I even bother with this stuff.
That’s why I attach a Gmail label to every nice e-mail I get. (Trollish e-mails get deleted.) When those dark days roll around and I need a boost, I just click on that label and read through a couple.
Then I get back to work.
Try it: instead of keeping a rejection file, keep a praise file. For when you need the lift.
Lindsay says
that’s such a great tip – I tell people to do that all the time at work…
Austin Kleon says
Lindsay: one of my other friends said she did this at work!
Me says
BRAVO! And so personal.