I've spent my life as a musician and have gotten many great reviews. They have encouraged me, and when my spirits flag as they often do, I used to reread them (lame of me, I know) to remind myself that someone, somewhere, "got it." I also have people come up to me when I perform who say, "Wow, that was great, why aren't you..." some variant of "famous," "successful," or implying, "someone I've already heard of?"

I don't have a burning desire to be wealthy or famous, but I would love to be able to simply make a living playing music. So far, I can't. There have been sporadic times, usually when I was a side musician, I could pay the nut for a month or two, then it's back to the day job. Meanwhile I can't go a week or two without seeing, on Leno or Letterman, musicians I've worked with. Most of them started out in the same clubs and bars I did, then have gone on to careers where they are at least self-supporting; now including a couple of great kids I knew at my last day job, who are 20 years younger than I am, and to whom I used to give advice and support!!

As others have said in this forum, at a certain point although it IS painful, one has to do the work for the love of the work itself. It's all very well for these people to imply, "and what's your problem with that?" It IS a problem. Making a living from one's art is not apparently beyond the reach of many we perceive as, okay I'll say it, "less talented" than we may feel we are; or at least, not excessively MORE talented. In most cases there are other reasons which factor in, and while it's regrettable, those are factors we simply, often, can't overcome; a patron, a connection, a resonance with a certain group of people "in power" at a given time can grace one's path; this grace, which seems completely arbitrary and random, can catapult one into at least some level of success. Without that, whether or not one has "talent," one labors in obscurity. Meanwhile as the LW has mentioned, "doing" the art at all, while holding down a day job, caring for a family or anything else one's life requires, is exhausting beyond description.

All is not lost!! There are many avenues for all art which did not exist even 10 years ago, through the Internet and other venues. So please persevere!!

By the way, one of my day jobs many (!) years ago was as a book reviewer for an entity the LW mentions. I thought it would be a "creative" thing to do before I "made it" in music. But it drove me crazy having to be negative about other people's dreams and life work (even when it WAS appropriate); so I went back to waitressing and being a secretary. If this is helpful at all (cold comfort I know), reviewers were somewhat discouraged from "going overboard" in praising any work -- to preserve the perception of objectivity of the entity. I'm not saying we were forced to write negative ones, but we were definitely told to tone it down if we were too effusive. That's the milieu of literary criticism -- either in "the trade" or academics -- so again as others have encouraged LW to do, it is essential to seek one's validation and comfort elsewhere.

I'd like to read the book!!