I was thinking today about people’s “taste” in things. It seems to me that if you have unique or eclectic tastes, that you might be blind to what “most” people enjoy. I struggle with this as a writer– or perhaps I should say, I am realizing I struggle with this as a writer.
I mean– how do I know what I’m writing has any appeal? Just cause I think it’s cool, doesn’t mean others will. In the entertainment world, there are many movies I thought were pretty awesome, but were not that popular (e.g. the Blade Runner sequel.)
Therefore, if some writers (or artists of any kind) like me are doomed to be blind to what “the masses” truly enjoy, and are simply incapable of writing for the masses– what are we writing for? More importantly– WHO are we writing for?
I guess the answer is ourselves.
In the end, very few of us will be bestsellers, or household names, or whatever measure of success we might be shooting for. We will instead be part of the lost bits of data scattered like dust across the fabric of time.
So for now, until I gain that elusive gift of sight for what the masses enjoy. I’ll just write for my biggest fan. Me. If I can enrapture that fan, that’ll be good enough.
-AJ