Finally, the big night arrived.

I’d worked on my speech for weeks, trying to make it as personal and honest as possible. You don’t often get the opportunity to sum up your life and calling, reflect on sixty (60) years of existing, drawing breath, putting one foot ahead of the other, day after day.

We’d done as much promo as we could—I’d even written an article for our local newspaper—but, really, the number of folks attending the event in person was of little concern. I also intended to record my presentation and post it as a bonus episode of my podcast, ensuring a much larger audience for what amounted to as a very public airing of the trials and tribulations of my writing life: the good (rare), the bad (frequent) and the ugly (more often than I care to think about).

My presentation, “The Art of Failure”, was well-received, people expressing very emotional responses to a speech that talked about the disappointments and humiliations endemic to artists, the total lack of appreciation and approbation one must learn to expect, the indifference of the rest of the world.

And it doesn’t get any better.

I’ve been a professional author since 1985 and in all that time have acquired, at best, a small but loyal cult following of enthusiasts willing to put up with my aesthetic eccentricities, most notably that I never repeat myself, each of my offerings utterly different and distinct from the ones that preceded it.

My message was that if one enters the arts for the purpose of being rich and famous, they are deluding themselves. It is a lonely, soul-crushing profession, a cruel and demanding mistress. The amount of effort required in order to become even a competent crafts-person should deter anyone in their right mind—achieving any kind of mastery requires an expenditure of time and energy of a whole other order of magnitude.

Talent carries you only so far, luck an arbitrary, intangible factor. Perseverance is what wins the day…but even that doesn’t guarantee you’ll gain any stature in your chosen field. All those years of work will likely avail you nought…especially when you consider that millions of other people are posting or publishing their “art” every year. Honestly, there is no effective strategy I know of (even after 3+ decades in the biz) whereby you can separate yourself from all that chaff—you are a pearl buried deep in a dung heap and the chances of anyone discovering you are just about nil.

But the good news is, real artists don’t require applause and rewards, they will continue to strive to express themselves regardless, and no amount of anonymity or obscurity will dissuade them.

Those were the folks I was addressing the night of October 20th, 2023.

If that sounds like you, pop over to Podbean, download “The Art of Failure” (or get it through Spotify, Amazon, etc.) and listen to it at your leisure.

It’s a powerful and compelling call to arms for people who are determined to pursue a life in the arts, even if that means putting up with the indignities and misery inflicted on them by a world that, as I say at one point during the speech, “is increasingly image-driven, superficial and intellectually incontinent”.

As always, I welcome your thoughts and opinions.

In the meantime: keep kicking against the pricks.

No matter how much it hurts.