I've had a few interesting conversations this week around self-publishing in general and blogging in particular. A coworker and fellow blogger shared my sentiments about blogs: sometimes it's just so difficult to keep the momentum going.

The question I've been playing with – and relating to the relative difficulty of maintaining a serious blog – is, what validates self-published work? Before the internet allowed us infinite possibilities for self-promotion, creative work passed through a limited number of routes to reach the public eye. Written work like mine would need to be picked up by a newspaper, a magazine, a publishing company even.

Now, with a truly global market for ideas, self-promotion has become an art in its own right. Words + Images exists not because an editor thought it worth printing, but because I imagined it and created a home for it and made a commitment to complete one post weekly, no later than Tuesday morning. Promotion, visibility, recognition, and success are not guaranteed, and standard rules of advertising do not apply. Instead, underground phenomena spread virally, promoted by millions of Gen Y'ers and Millenials vying to be the first to discover the newest cool thing on the internet.

Is this what validates self-published work? Trying to get one's work seen – whether in a gallery, magazine, book, etc. -- in traditional media can be incredibly demoralizing, and self-publishing can at times feel like an easy way out. Lately I'm inclined to feel otherwise. Keeping this blog going is a labor of love and it relies entirely on my own personal motivation to keep making the time commitment week after week. Not only have I continued to write for Words + Images, but I have spent many a weekend correcting bugs, solving emergencies, and attending to other overhead.

I'm of a mind that self-publishing and the internet have provided the next evolution of “art for art's sake.” With it we see a liberation of the artist, and a new kind of dedication: one that doesn't rely on acceptance letters or royalties or good reviews, but solely on the creator's will to keep it alive even when it seems no one is looking.