I think what most artists who havent yet overcome the hurdle of actually getting their stuff out have trouble grasping, is that the majority of your life as a creator is not spent creating things, its spent selling things. Orson Welles said that he spent 95% of his life trying to gather money to make movies and 5% of his life actually making movies. Its no way to live. Even if some company comes along and scoops you up (which basically means you just got hired for a job, not much else), youre still invariably going to spend most of your time working at selling the thing (and future things) in some form or another. I write 3,000 words per day, and the time it takes to do that is probably 30% of my time as an indie creator. The other 70% of my working day is spent finding readers. Its no way to live, and I wish it were all easier, but it is what it is. Just know that a career in the arts has very little to do with creating art -- just like being a cop has very little to do with high speed chases and shoot outs. Cops are mostly doing paperwork. Creators are mostly schlepping their stacks.
Posted on: Wed, 06 Nov 2013 22:49:19 +0000