A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.
The true philosopher and the true poet are one, and a beauty, which is truth, and a truth, which is beauty, is the aim of both.
SpiralTruth
Just another post-modern quest for meaning.
Browsing the archives for the on being an artist category.
I’m a huge fan of John Irving. If you happen to not like the stuff I write and wish I’d never gotten the itch to put it out in public, then you can put at least a bit of the responsibility on his shoulders. To me, his work is the perfect blend of literary and popular fiction. You get the brain candy of his absurd plots and loveable characters, and yet, when you’re done, you don’t feel like you’ve just junked out. Your brain has been nourished, you’re a little more understanding of everyone’s eccentricities, and you understand that you can laugh and cry about the world at the same time. I remember reading someone’s review of A Prayer for Owen Meany. They used the book as a test for whether or not a relationship could last. If the person reading it didn’t like it, then they simply didn’t have a soul, and there would be trouble ahead. That’s pretty high praise for a book, but it’s praise that is well earned.
Irving’s writing has soul. If he was a musician, he’d be an old blues player. His writing is very firmly grounded in the world of the average American, and he has a talent for making those lives into epic tales of love and loss. Yes, he seems to have a predisposition towards bears and writing about writers and New England and a number of other things that you come to expect will show up at least once in every couple of novels, but that’s what he knows, and I would argue that it’s a testament to his talent as a writer that he’s made those things vivid enough for us to notice their repetition.
I haven’t read his latest novel, Last Night in Twisted River, yet, but it’s on the bookshelf begging for me to finish off those other books and get to it. I’m looking forward to the moment I can do that.
Wow. Copyblogger’s How Your Emotions Are Strangling the Life Out of Your Copy is right on the money. I struggle with this all the time.
Whenever you feel like you’re taking a risk, an emotional response is triggered. Your emotional needs feel threatened. The filter is engaged, and your bold copy turns into a big puddle of boringness.
Yep. Been there, done that. And I know that this article is directed more towards editorial style blogging articles, but it is also true for prose and poetry. In fact, the problem is especially pernicious in prose and poetry because you can hide the fact that you just censored yourself behind a bunch of metaphors and neat literary devices.
I don’t worry about random people judging me so much as friends and family. You get this awesome idea or insight, and maybe it’s a bit weird or a bit dark. Even if you’re exploring the idea with a completely fictional character, you’re the one who’s thinking about it, who’s putting it on the page. It’s in your brain. Somewhere. And what does this say about you? I wonder if a guy like Stephen King worries about this stuff. He manages to write some of the most fucked up characters imaginable and I’ve often heard people say, “Thank God he’s a writer,” even after praising his imagination. The suggestion, of course, is that if he wasn’t a writer, he’d be one of those fucked up characters. And, when you look at it that way, what a nasty thing to say about a writer…
I’ve noticed in myself and humanity as a whole that even the best of us feel this need to undercut anyone who’s successful. We have to find the faults. We have to take them down. That’s one way of bringing them to our level. The other way would be empathy – realizing that no matter the talent or success of somebody, they still love, hate, fear, and worry about what people think of them, just like we do. It’s hard, when someone like Stephen King makes it look so easy. But next time, instead of saying, “Thank God he’s a writer,” I’m going to simply thank him for doing what he’s doing, which is paving the way for other writers to think strange thoughts and write about the possibilities those thoughts open up… and not feel guilty about it.
UrbanMonk has an interesting article on how to get to the core of your passion(s) and then pursue them. A lot of it’s just the standard “don’t give up on your dreams” rhetoric (which isn’t exactly a bad thing) designed to give that much needed boost of hope that creative types need more often than most, as we pursue our various quixotic quests and treks up Maslow mountains.
What I found different about this post was how it encourages you to analyze a given passion, to break it up into a core essence, preferred forms of expression, and preferred mediums to communicate it to others. We often make the error of locking into a specific version of a passion (i.e. “I want to be a rock star with a record deal who sells out arenas”) when what we really want is much more fundamental (i.e. “I love to tell stories and explore emotion and thought, especially through music, and I’d like to do it full time. I could get a record deal to help with this, but I could also do it myself. It would be nice to have a big audience, but all I really need is a thousand true fans.”).
Check it out if you think you should be pursuing some of those passions you’ve been denying but don’t know where to start.
Since seeing Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED talk on creativity, I’ve thought a lot about muses. When we hear someone refer to a muse, we often think of a beautiful woman with whom a poet is deeply in love, writing poem after poem after poem for. I shudder to think of how many poor women have been tormented by moronic attempts at verse because of this personification. Ladies, you have my sympathy.
That’s not to say muses aren’t important. Gilbert’s talk made me realize that, far from simply being an easy source of inspiration, they’re a necessary mechanism an artist uses to keep from becoming too self-absorbed while creating some very personal and subjective things. A muse brings coherence to these personal experiences, making them transcend the person. It simultaneously allows an artist to maintain a comfortable distance from whatever it is that torments him to create and provides a framework in which others can understand those creations.
The following is a copy of my hasty letter to the Canadian Copyright consultations going on right now. Please send your own while there’s time.
Dear Ministers,
I put a lot of work into my art and, yes, I would love to one day be able to quit my day job to pursue my artistic endeavours full time. There’s a lot changing in the record industry and the publishing industry, and for the little guy, most of it’s good. My enemy is not piracy, it’s obscurity. Please don’t pretend that you’re helping me realize my dreams by creating harsher copyright laws. You’re not. In fact, I’m hard pressed to figure out what sort of creator extending the length of copyright past what it is now (life + 50 years, I believe) will help. Certainly not the guys just starting out. I’d be happy with a 10-20 year span before the works I create fall into the public domain. In fact, shortening the length of copyright is far more reasonable given the faster pace of the world today.
The stories of how much a musician actually gets from his own record sales when under a record company contract are well known… so well known that most musicians I know no longer want a record deal and even some of the major players are getting out of their contracts as soon as they can. The creators are busy forging new roads. The best way to help us to do that is to simply stay out of our way. You’re dealing with some powerful lobbyists, I know. They’ll tell you that culture will go down the drain if you don’t step up the laws on copyright. In fact, relaxing the laws may do more to encourage culture than anything. It just won’t help the guys looking to get rich off of my (and other artists’) work.
Look at the Internet today. It has permeated every part of our lives and opened up communication dramatically. When I was a child, I needed access to a set of encyclopedias to find out about something. Now I can get that knowledge instantly, for free… online. Imagine how things might have been different had that knowledge not been so easily accessible over the last few years. We are creating more than we ever have before, enabling more people to create, and despite a huge recession brought about by non-creators looking to make a fast buck, creativity goes on unhindered.
The only thing you can do to stifle creativity is to put more control of it in the hands of corporate types.
I visited my local public library for the first time in years a month or so back. I make enough money these days to buy the books I’m interested in as soon as they come out. And it’s impossible to estimate how much of an edge that gives me on my competition: to be able to read about the newest theories, the newest programming languages, to explore philosophy and science on my own time whenever I need to and without having to wait for someone else to be done with their copy. When I visited the library, I was struck by how many people there were obviously much poorer than I was. Whereas for me, this was a curiosity, a place where I might find a book I wanted to read and didn’t want to buy, for them it was the only place they could afford to get new knowledge. And I realized how much of a disadvantage that put them at. The maddening thing is that at this point in history, the lack of availability of a new book is completely artificial. In reality, all of these people could have the latest and greatest information at no cost to us. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t compensate creators for their work. I’m one of them. But I think that the compensation should be looked at fairly. How much easier is it to create and have a voice than it was 10 years ago? A lot. I don’t have to risk as much to create. Consequently, I don’t have as much claim to higher rewards.
Don’t worry. Creators will find ways to make a living off of what they do, no matter what. They’ll still create as much as they can without that. And every day, thanks to the biggest example of information sharing (the Internet), some of the brightest minds are coming up with new models and ideas to support art and culture without that support coming at the expense of the public.
Three strikes and you’re out? Copyright extension? Fining people outside of the court system? These are all things I’m hearing about in other countries and that I hope Canada will stay away from. How about a three strikes you’re out policy towards companies making spurious copyright claims (make 3 claims against someone that turn out to be false and you get YOUR internet taken away)? How would a record company do business without the Internet? But that would be fair given that they want to take that form of communication away from a citizen without even proper court proceedings.
Please consider this when you’re making your decisions. You were elected by us, not your lobbyists. Don’t make it harder to create so that a few can make way more money than they deserve. Encourage creativity. Get out of our way.
- David
This has been waiting in my queue for a while. It’s a wonderful TED talk from Elizabeth Gilbert on dealing with the elusive nature of creativity – the moments of genius and the grasping at straws that inevitably precedes and follows those moments of brilliance.
What is it specifically about creative ventures that seems to make us really nervous about each others’ mental health in a way that other careers… don’t do?
A friend emailed me a few days ago to give me props on a song I wrote and recorded a while back, jokingly ending the email with, “You jerk.” He’s been playing guitar for a few years and just started recording and performing at open mike nights. I don’t know if anyone really knows how much comments like that help in giving you that often needed kick in the ass to do more. I’ve really enjoyed showing him all the tricks I’ve learned and like to think that I’m able to help someone else get to where they want to go a little bit faster than it’s taken me. But there’s one really important thing about writing and recording and performing that I haven’t told him about. And maybe that’s because I’ve never really admitted it to myself.
Last night, I did.
My current band has had what I think are several radio-worthy tracks for a couple of years and I still haven’t sent a CD into the local radio station. Why? Sure, we’ve just been distributing the tracks online and don’t have an actual CD yet, but even the Amish know how to burn a CD these days. (Actually, I don’t know that, but wikipedia tells me that the Amish actually aren’t quite the luddites we usually assume they are, so I’m betting I could find at least one.) And I’ve bugged plenty of radio station folks in my last band, eventually getting radio play for tracks that I think are far less worthy than these. So what’s the hang up?
It’s hard to explain it to someone who hasn’t done the whole self promotion thing for years, but those of you who have, successful or not, have got to agree that it sucks. If I could scrub toilet bowls in exchange for someone spending the equivalent amount of time promoting me, I’d say, “Sign me up!” And I think I might have to fight more than a few other struggling artists for the privilege.
What’s so bad about it? Do I not believe in myself enough? Not enough self confidence? Well, not really. I’ve seen many a band make it with less talent. And I’ve seen many musicians more talented than me not going anywhere either. Call it low confidence if you will, but there’s more than a little luck involved… and obviously being able to promote yourself can swing the odds in your favor.
Well, the thing is, I just don’t know how to do it without looking like an asshole. Who out there has had to write up a press kit bio for themselves? Does a part of you not cringe at all of the accolades you bestow upon yourself? “I’m really not that vain, but I know anyone who knows me will think I am if they knew I wrote this!” Or the infamous query letter that attempts to convince a publisher that I’m the next Steinbeck. After all, they’d say, why should they waste their time with a mediocre writer?
The artists that I really look up to are the ones who think they’re not that great, the ones who are still trying to live up to their idols. I can’t imagine one of these folks promoting themselves in the way that conventional wisdom seems to suggest. I have a secret suspicion that any humble artist who makes it does so because someone else gets tired of them not promoting themselves and decides to do it for them. Because if you really think you’re the hot shit that people who are going to give you those lucky breaks want to believe you are… then you’re probably just an asshole.
And if you really care about what you’re doing, the last thing you want to do is feel like an asshole about it.