Superstars and Whatnot (etc)

Over the weekend I wrote up an inkpunk post, some (meandering) thoughts about talent, ability, and creative success:

"It was at the Illustration Masters Class where I first heard Greg Manchess declare that there is no such thing as talent. A rather startling premise to tell a bunch of aspiring artists. But no, Greg stated that artistic skill “is built, not possessed”, created by hard work and training. I wonder about this idea, chew on it occasionally, still not sure what I think. It makes me think of films like Amadeus and Finding Forrester that portray bitter rivalries between merely adequate creators and their brilliant counterparts. I have no idea how historically accurate the portrayals are, but today Mozart is a household name while Salieri is mostly for history buffs. I itch and scratch away at what that thing is that makes one individual a superstar while another is just adequate." ~read more

Then this morning John Scalzi posted about Self Loathing as a creative person, how, basically, it is NOT a given that all writers (or artist, etc) must deal with the throes of depression and self loathing. It was a good one for me to read this morning: last night I was actually agonizing a bit, feeling utterly talentless and terrified of my mediocrity. Today is looking to be a much better day. Shake it off, get back to work. It's all good. Anyways, here's a bit from Scalzi:

"...Are there writers who are self loathing? Absolutely, because there are people who are self-loathing, and writers are a subset of people. There are also doctors who are self-loathing, plumbers who are self-loathing, farmers who are self-loathing and so on. There are also writers who are not self-loathing. There are excellent writers who grapple with self-loathing; there are excellent writers who don’t (there are mediocre and terrible writers in each category as well, of course). Trying to typify all writers as self-loathing is as useful as typifying all writers as anything, save the base, practical definition of “someone who writes.”...
I think people who are writers and who are also the sort of self-loathe can possibly use that self-loathing as a tool in some way, but personally I suspect if you’re genuinely deep in the throes of self-loathing, as a writer or whomever, your first stop should be a doctor, to see if that’s something that’s treatable. It might be easier to deal with the writing the sucks if you’re not thinking that therefore, you suck."  ~ read more

 Now, here... I leave you with a page from my sketchbook from two year ago,