I’m sad to say that I continue to struggle with motivation and creativity. I realized earlier this week that I’ve missed two blog entries, when I thought I only missed one, and I can’t even say why I missed the second one. For the first one, a chronic injury had flared up so I took it easy that day, but I’m honestly not sure why I didn’t write anything last week. I guess it’s just another example of time feeling meaningless, combined with my general inability to keep track of things these days.

I’ve decided to take a different approach this week and work on other things for a bit. I have a short story that needs some tweaking so I’m going to focus on that. I’m hoping that working on something that doesn’t have the pressure of the novel might be a better way to ease myself back into my writing habit. Fingers crossed I’ll have a better update for you next week.

In the vein of not great news for writing was the recent public revelations about Neil Gaiman. I’ve long loved his work and have written in this blog about the inspiration he’s provided me. There’s been a lot of such revelations about a lot of people in recent history, but this one really smashed into my personal collection of much-loved art.

When the world began to finally change, and powerful people taking advantage of their power started to be brought to light, I did a lot of soul searching about what it means to me to separate the art from the artist. The position I came to was that it’s ok to continue loving the works that you’ve always loved. If a book, or movie, or work of art have been a formative part of your life, I don’t think it’s necessary to suddenly cut that out. But I do think it’s imperative not to continue supporting an artist whose actions are inexcusable. So I can forgive myself for continuing to love a work that has been long-loved, but the next time that artist releases something, I ignore it. To do otherwise, in my view, is to continue supporting the career of someone who is objectionable, and implicitly gives the okay to that behaviour.

Others may disagree with me, believing me to be either too harsh or not harsh enough. That’s fine, I’m not here to judge anyone’s morality. I’m simply expressing where I’ve found myself to be on this issue in the past.  

As I said, despite the number of stories that have come forward in recent years, this one hit harder than anything previous on my artistic inspirations, my creative loves, and my personal collection. I won’t lie, it made me stop and re-examine my stance on separating the art from the artist. It’s made me very sad and I’ve actually cried to find out someone I so admired, and took so much inspiration from, could be so awful. So I did do a re-examination and soul searching about how I feel about the books and stories I’ve always loved from this author. Do I get rid of those books? Do I keep them? Do I keep them but hide them out of sight so no one knows I love them?

So far, I’ve stuck with my original assessment. I think it’s alright for me to continue to love his books that I’ve always loved. I don’t think I need to get rid of all the ones I currently have. But I won’t be buying more going forward and I won’t be looking for public appearances of his that I might attend.

I’m still undecided about where his books belong on my shelves now. They haven’t moved yet, but that’s something that might change in the future. There’s another author whose books I kept for a long time after my knowledge of that person soured, but I recently did remove those from my shelves after a recent re-reading showed me that those books don’t hit me the same way they used to. Maybe the same will happen for Mr. Gaiman eventually; it’s hard to say.

My re-examination done, I’m relieved to find my sense of right and wrong survived a more personal blow. Everyone likes to think of themselves as morally incorruptible, but I think that’s one of those things you can’t know for sure until you’re tested.  It’s depressing to have to move on from an artist I’ve long admired, but I believe it has to be done. I’m trying to see this as an opportunity to move on to new works and new artists, and to find new inspirations. But I’d be lying if I said there’s no sadness. This was a re-examination I could have done without.