500-WORD RANT #14
Are You an Artist?
One simple word will tell you.
I’ve read a lot of articles about the shame some writers feel about self-promotion.
There are people who have something valuable to say but feel cheapened by all the schmoozing and schnorring required to make decent money.
There’s nothing wrong with marketing yourself to get paid for your art.
With the unrelenting frustration and pressure we feel to justify spending all our time here, it’s common to read about writers who lose their passion and want to give up.
Nothing is going to change the fact that the word turds filling up this social media community pool are crowding out the real artists.
When faced with this arbitrary and absurd system, losing passion and wanting to quit would seem to be the only rational response.
It reminds me of one of my favorite truisms: “Just Because You’re Paranoid Doesn’t Mean They aren’t After You.”
The only question remaining is to take a long hard look at yourself and ask “am I an artist?”
Here’s a simple test.
#1: How do you define yourself as you tap away at your keyboard?
Possible descriptions: author, biographer, columnist, contributor, correspondent, critic, dramatist, editor, essayist, ghostwriter, journalist, novelist, poet, a person of letters, raconteur, reporter, screenwriter, scripter, spinner of yarns, stringer, wordsmith, or writer.
#2: What is the role or function of your writing? (Don’t include making money, because everyone wants to get paid.)
Role or function: advocate, cheerleader, composer, craftsman, creator, eccentric, entertainer, evangelist, fool, iconoclast, protestor, rebel, scribe, seer, storyteller, teacher, or truth-teller.
If you used any of the words above, the chances are you’re an artist, regardless of how much you earn. But if you used the word CONTENT, don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
If you battle, bleed, conjure, dream, endure, imagine, struggle, suffer, and sweat during the process of birthing your creative babies, you’re an artist.
If you A/B test, assemble, aggregate, construct, excrete, fabricate, forge, manufacture, mill, mold, prefab, process, produce, shit, spit or spew 1–5 posts per day devoid of humor, real-world experience, emotion, hard-earned wisdom, and original thinking, you‘re not.
#3. Is your goal is to entertain, educate, or illuminate people because it’s in your blood? If you do, you’re an artist.
If you do none of those things but claim you want to help people learn how to make big money by buying your books, classes, and training, you’re not.
Wherever you end up on your journey, if you’re an artist, I hope you find some comfort in the writer’s psalm.
It contains age-old wisdom that I just made up, but that doesn’t change the fact that it should be a psalm, right?
Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of doubt, I fear no bullshit, for great books are with me; Their words and their craft, they comfort me.
