The "Plight" of the Starving Artist

I think all of us have a romantic vision of what it is like to be an artist or an author.

Something like this:

With a view like this:

And money enough

To be able to have hundreds of books and have an “inspiration nook” like this:

When really it looks a lot more like this:

Or if you’re lucky you’ll be able to pull a

But in the end, whether starving artist or a published hot shot, the fact is that

Why?

Because writing isn’t about the money, or cute lanes in Paris, or being able to look like this classy lady.

Writing is about the story inside of you or an unending passion for words. It’s about speaking what needs to be said, whether you need it at 2 am or the world needs it in bookstores around the globe. Writing is about crafting worlds and characters and spinning stories that save souls. Writing is all about an obsession to be better than one is, though we know that we may never reach that mountain top we so desperately desire. It’s about seeing our dark places and using the eyes of the world to shine a light there. It’s about taking the voices in your head and letting them thrive on the page. It’s about knowing that you are a tad bit insane and living with it. It’s about being courageous and proclaiming wherever you go, “I am a writer!” 

So in the end we leave a legacy.

And it doesn’t matter if we ever travel the world,

Or own a typewriter,

Or have a fluffy feline which will rest upon our shoulders,

Or sell a million books.

In fact in the end it doesn’t even matter if you ever get published or if people love what you write. In fact, the best authors of all time remained unpublished until long after their death and the reason was that they wrote ahead of their time. They wrote what the world needed to hear, but was shutting its ears to.

The world needs more writers like that.

The world is in need of many more dragons.

-Deanna Leah.