Since I learned to write, I started to keep a collection of all my writings (stories, poems, the unfinished novels, everything), and reading them I can realize how my writing has been influenced by all the things I've lived, the books I've read, every little part of me that has changed.
Literature has changed the way I feel the world, and also is the first thing I considered Art. By literature, I can understand every kind of art, and believe in all the things I like to believe (love, sincerity, good people, fantasy, etc) and others don't. Art became part of my life and I can't take it off, but one day I started to ask me if I really create art. Recently my writing is simple, vain, lost its essence. Is that art? I don't think so.
When a story makes me feel an emotion, the feeling I tried to express, and it's a good story (the structure, words, topic, narrative, everything is complete), then I can say it IS art (obviously, sometimes that's not enough).
I feel the things I'm writing are everything but art. Maybe I'm wrong and Literature is not for me. I'd prefer to die before write things like all that Dan Brown's stuff and think is art. Authors like him (and I don't have anything against them) can sell all the books they want, but never claim that it's literature (good literature, I mean) or art.
I will have to think about it. It's a serious thing.