Your art was made for reaching people.
Did you know that?
I like to think that all my typing is for myself.
Or, maybe for my children.
But there has to be an audience, right?
Otherwise, your writing, your painting, your art is nothing but keeping a journal.
We have to reach others.
Maybe that is what separates the novice from the pro?
The former creates alone, and the latter shapes their art with the user in mind – and then shares.
Our expression, if it is to have impact, must reach other people. As Chuck Klosterman wrote, even the most pretentious and elitist artist would not be satisfied if no one saw what they were making—if he was, “he’d sit in a dark room and imagine he wrote it already.” Nabokov, a writer’s writer if there ever was one, said it best: “Literature is not only fun, it is also business.” To survive in business, you must make other people (and yourself) money. You must serve customers. To believe otherwise is bad business.
-Ryan Holiday, Perennial Seller (Amazon)