Some of you know this already but my sister and I are working on a children’s book together. I wrote the story, she is hand painting 22+ illustrations.
She only knows how to paint one way- by hand, with detail, in layers. She doesn’t know what the final painting will look like- only when she finishes each one will she know when it is finished.
So you must believe me when I say it’s been taking her months and months and months to work on her paintings. So much effort. The only thing she cares about is being proud of the end result.
There’s no concern about the most efficient way to paint, about how to leverage technology to speed it up.
But this weekend we were chatting and she said to me, “what if the book is a failure?”
By which she meant no one buys it.
I assured her it will almost surely be a commercial failure. Our friends and family will buy the book but we won’t have wide commercial success.
I also went on to tell her that the act of creation is holy.
Everyone can say how easy it is to make a children’s book - especially with self publishing tools and AI art generation.
But most people don’t make one.
As long as we publish a book that we are happy with, there is no way we can ever consider ourselves a failure.
Shout out to all the builders and creators out there- making something that didn’t exist in the world but for you doing it. Art, poems, books, articles, software, companies, food, families, communities, music, gardens. Whatever it is- you’re doing something admirable. 💜💜 20 replies
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