I heard an interviewer ask a successful sceenwriter, "What advice would you give young people wanting to become professional writers?"

He answered, more or less: "Don't. If there's anything, any amount of rejection or failure that can discourage you, then quit now and save yourself a lot of hard knocks." I gather, as A Hen's Tooth and lefthanded guitar suggested, some people create because there's art inside them clawing to get out. Others without a "calling" may choose more freely what part of their life their arts will take.

Lefthanded Guitar said of driven artists, "yet they create something that touches everyone's hearts." But it doesn't always touch others, does it? Some unfashionable artists get honoured by later generations, but most unappreciated art gets lost, which can be hard on the artist too. If music isn't feeding you enough to live, but you can't leave it and live without it...