Okay, this one’s a little on the serious side. Apologies. But hey, if you can’t blog about people who happen to you… No matter what my handler says. So here goes:

How are football players judged? Now, I’m not a big sports person, but I’m constantly surrounded by people who are, and they tell me: it’s performance, how well they play, age, and character off the field. The latter are the train-wreck players who are arrested for all kinds of extremes and/or just plain petty crimes.

How are supermodels judged? Appearance mostly. Age if they’re doing it badly. And, of course, the train wrecks.

To me, these seem like reasonable judgements, having neither appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated nor in the NFL Hall of Fame.

Indulge me while I circle in on my point.

How are artists judged? Writers, actors, painters, singers, and musicians? Talent, sure—at least that’s what we hope. And I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that we have more than our fair share of train wrecks.

If that were the end of the story, we could all go about our business—except for me. I’d just be told, “Blog’s kinda light. Fill the page, dude.”

But it’s not the end of the story, is it?

Jules Renard, a famous 19th century writer, put it this way: “Writing is an occupation in which you have to keep proving your talent to those who have none.”

Insert the word sculptor, pianist, composer, what have you. The message is clear: Artists are often judged based upon what non-artists think those artists should be. And to be even more clear, it’s not about talent. It’s not even about preference—artists are good with preference. We don’t care if you like her song better, or if you don’t “get” my painting, or if my book just isn’t for you. We expect that. We hope you’ll tell us why, because that might be an insight that we could use in the future.

Instead, what we get is something like the conversation I had yesterday:

Guy with an Opinion (because, really, can we ever get enough of those?): Yeah, I finished your latest book.

Me: Good. I’d love to hear your thoughts … what you liked, what you didn’t, and why.

Guy with an Opinion: I hate that all the women in your books always throw themselves at your main character.

Me: Interesting. I’ve never written that in any of my books.

Guy with an Opinion: I just call it like I see it. They’re always perfect, all the women want them. That’s the problem with your books.

Me (pausing for a moment to look for the hidden camera): Um, having written all of my books, I think I can safely say that what you’re describing doesn’t occur once. But, for the sake of argument, let’s assume that it was in the book you just read.

Guy with an Opinion: It was; it’s in all of them.

Me: Fine, whatever. It would help me to know, specifically, how it worked or didn’t work within the story. And again, why.

Guy with an Opinion: Here’s where you went wrong. I would have written the story this way…

So really, what can you say to something like that as an artist? It’s criticism, sure. And it’s directed at you, but it’s obviously not about you. And it’s almost always aggressive, which I’ve also never understood.

I actually don’t understand any of it. Am I too thin-skinned? Do I exist on a parallel plane of existence, and I only think I’m interacting with the people around me? Can I please be judged for who I am and/or what I do?

I should never have given up super-modeling.

Thanks, Tyra.