A long cathartic text post on hurt feelings and writing, Please scroll past.
Unless you too have a horribly difficult time learning how to write, in which case you and I should go get a drink some time.
Reading this was excruciating. I am so angry on your behalf, mystradedoodles. To open up and trust someone enough to show them something you’ve written is incredibly difficult, especially when you’re first getting started. To then have that “writer” make such horrid, sweeping judgements about the worth of your work must have been soul-crushing.
Please don’t give up writing. You have something to say, and stories to share. Don’t let one person’s arrogance dictate what you do with your creativity. Frankly, you don’t want to be associated with someone so cruel and short-sighted, anyway.
For the record, I’m incredibly envious of your artistic talent. Your comment below made me so sad:
“Illustrations are just a garnish. They are not necessary or even sometimes relevant to the plot. They’re just a pretty little extra to be enjoyed while you read.
“To be the artist is usually to be considered brainless. I am a hand for hire, incapable of thought because I simply produce pictures of what someone else has written.”
It takes such talent, such imagination, to be able to draw like you do. Please don’t belittle your lovely work just because you connected up with someone who told you such drivel. Don’t buy into those lies. You have so much to contribute to the world.
So, please – kick this “writer” to the curb, move on, and keep drawing and writing! Take a chance and share a story. Don’t give up!
*hugs*
Actually, as someone who both writes and does art, I want to add that that point about art being merely garnish is entirely untrue.
I know that some people think of it that way, and that when you do art professionally you get a lot of people who DO treat you as nothing more than a hand (and this infuriates me, but I’ll spare you all from the rant about abusing artists and taking their hard, intensive work for granted—THIS TIME). But art CAN tell stories. Sometimes I get plot bunnies when I’m thinking about writing, and it turns out they’re art bunnies, because what I want to communicate can more effectively be ‘said’ through an illustration than words.
Sometimes words just get in the way. Sometimes we want to speak the unspeakable, the things that words don’t exist for, and then art is at least as eloquent a medium as writing.
Doodles, your art is SO eloquent. It’s often cute, and frequently deliberately silly, but 1: speaking as an artist who can’t do cute or silly without working hard for it, those are gifts in themselves, and 2: that doesn’t impinge on the gentle affectionate intimacy between your Mycroft and Lestrade, or the elegant, fascinating world-building in your Chrestocroft art, or the sly humor in your John’s face or the haughty curiosity in your Sherlock’s… You are already a better storyteller than you know.