Perception and Images

   I hope everyone has had a good weekend! Mine has been great so far. I’d like to address all the new likes and followers on Facebook and Twitter. I’m very surprised to see how many people have started paying attention to my pages, and I’m definitely grateful. In less than twenty-four hours, my likes on Facebook have more than doubled, and my followers on Twitter grew by over a hundred people. I’m hoping that all this new attention will translate to sales, but either way, I’m happy that I’m able to network with everyone.

   Today I’d like to talk about perception and images. It seems like a simple enough thing, but it’s really complicated. Look at entertainers, for example. We think of certain musicians and writers in a certain light, but the truth is that ninety percent of the time, the people we see and the people who actually exist are completely different people. Oftentimes, when we see our heroes in a different light, we throw around words like fraud or phony, but that just isn’t the case. Take a man who has been considered a villain in music for over a decade. Marshall Mathers is a rap artist who has made his fortune by using extremely emotional and controversial lyrics. Some people think of him as a terrible person, and most people truly believe that the person we hear behind the mic is the real Marshall Mathers. Here’s the thing, though. When people have been interviewed in Marshall’s old neighborhood, most of them described him as a quiet and respectful kid. How did this quiet kid become so controversial then? It’s simple. If he had written songs about peace and love, no one would have paid attention to him, so he did what most artists do. He wrote what people wanted to hear. He even created an entirely different persona to sell to people. I know it’s apples and oranges between music and books, but I also know for a fact that a lot of authors feel like we have to write what people want to hear. Our books can become a chore because at some point, they stop being a reflection of our psyche and start being a mirror image of what the people around us want to see. It’s at that point that an author begins to doubt themselves. They’re playing a role just to be accepted. Dark thoughts start to creep in, and you start to wonder what must be so wrong with you if no one will accept the most intimate thoughts in you. I’ve experienced that and almost reworked my books to match a more conventional format, but I’m ultimately glad that I’ve decided not to write conventionally and not to sell people an image of something that I’m not.

   I guess my main point in all of this is that some people say they want something original and that they want to see the true image of what someone is, but one fact remains. The majority of things that really blow up are as false as they can be, and that’s not the artist’s fault. For some reason, that’s just how most people seem to want things. Images of things sell, while truth sits on the shelf. It’s really a shame, too. If there is one thing I’ve learned from all of this, though, it’s that I don’t ever want to create an image or sell anything that isn’t original and every part of me. Whether I’m met with rejection or acceptance, I’m in this for better or worse. I just hate to look at the world around me and see so many artists and writers having to change truly unique works to fit a very ordinary world.

   Thanks for reading, and I’ll have some big news soon for everyone. The final Strange Visions book is very close, so stay tuned.