The world has changed. Thanks to the invention of computers and the web, came the creation of blogs. Anyone is the world is capable of having their own blog and sharing their thoughts with the world. Overall, I think this is a great thing. The more people talking, the more chances of us understanding each other. However, my problem arises when some of these "bloggers" somehow become famous, get their blogs turned into books and call themselves authors. Granted, there are some very talented people who started as bloggers and now have become book authors, but the majority are not.
Writers are artists and art is not something you can mass produce. No one can teach you to be an artist. Sure, you can hone your skills, you can learn techniques, but the innate spark that made you want to create has to be there first. There must be something inside of you that completely obsesses you, something that says, "If I don't write, I can't make sense of things. There's something missing." It is that spark, that joy that you feel when you put down words on a paper, or a computer screen that allows you to improve and get better.
Not everyone who learns how to write their name, or a blog is truly a writer. Talent is key. But there's also that unnameable quality, that thing that you can't really articulate but that you feel whenever you read something that is truly amazing. Sure, yeah, there's the language, the idea, the characters, the plot, but there's something else, something that makes it a work of art, something that escapes definition and just is.
For instance, the same could be said about photography. Thanks to smart phones and cheap digital cameras, everyone thinks they are a photographer. There's nothing wrong about taking pictures of your family and your friends and make memories, but the problem comes when some of those people think, "I have a camera, so that means I'm a photographer, let me make a watermark." Sorry, but that's now how it works. If you don't have that innate talent, that unique voice, then it doesn't matter how many lenses you got, you are terrible, or in vernacular, you still suck. Lenses and good cameras will only get you so far. Like I said, unless you have that yearning passion, that obsession and the innate talent, then you may be popular, you may even be rich, but you're not an artist, not in the true sense of the word, not in the way that matters.
On defense of artists
