Date: 2021 May 4
APOK News:
APOK III Chapter 26 has begun! Big steps forward and getting every closer to the end of the trilogy. I’m as excited as you are to find out what happens. What is going to happen… Hmmm…
OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS
It can come as a whisper, and at other times, it can hit you like a truck (or in my case, a compact 4 door).
BOHEMIAN… or “starving artist” is a term that was made popular in Paris in the mid 1800s. While I wouldn’t consider myself a true starving artist, thanks to my day job, if I was to support myself through my artistic works only, not only would I be starving, I’d likely be dead already. Art is a tricky business when it comes commercial success, there are many underlying currents beyond subjectivity, all out of the artist’s control. Two people could read, watch or listen to the same thing and have two completely different reactions. While I’ve been fortunate that there have been many who enjoy my works, in order to quit my day job I would have to sell a staggering amount… each sale gets me closer, however if I never reach that point, I am happy with that too. In Paris words, “C’est la vie.”
There have been many who lived to create, rather than create to live. A distinguished list of artists who died poor, yet their works today are worth millions, include; Vincent Van Gogh (visual artist), Johann Sebastian Bach (composer), Claude Monet (visual artist), Edgar Allan Poe (writer), Emily Dickinson (writer) and many more. They disregarded the musings and rumblings of the people around them critiquing their work and passing it by.
When I started writing APOK (2011), it was a nameless story that I was doing for myself. My passion or driving force was working a job (case), where I had no say or control over what I was spilling my heart and soul into all day, everyday (while each investigation has its own challenges – this particular one had more than all those before it and all those after it). Before taking up the pen, my regular outlet was exercise and at that time, no matter how much I beat myself up, nothing seemed to relieve the pressure… that was until I finally started to write. The stress release was near immediate. As quickly as it takes to flick a switch, I was now the master of my domain, no one could tell me what to say or what my characters could do. I had absolute freedom, and for the first time in a long time, the stress began to lift. Just when I thought I had everything under control along came a car… turning my hobby into my focus. It gave me light when there was darkness.
Each and everyone of us is an artist in one fashion or another. Like many others, for years I silenced the writer inside saying things like; “I don’t have time. / I had more important things to do. / That’s a child’s dream, time to focus on reality.” It wasn’t until I felt like a hamster on a wheel spinning and never going anywhere when I heard the knocking of opportunity. I wasn’t even sure what or who was going to be there when I swung open the door.
Personally, I don’t know what I would do if I wasn’t writing. Funny how that happens. While I work hard to make sure that whoever cracks an APOK spine and runs their finger across the black font enjoys the story, it’s not what drives me to do what I do. It’s the joy of creating. Now, years later and two published novels deep, I still love to write. Clicking the keys still brings a smile to my face as I lose myself in my imagination.
Being a starving artist is to create from the heart. In doing so success is guaranteed (success definition: The accomplishment of an aim or purpose). Find your inner starving artist and feel the heaviness of life get lighter…listen for the whisper, cuz you don’t want to get hit by the truck. Trust me.
Take care,
Mike