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matociquala and arcaedia) are talking about professionalism and writing and why the two so often part company. In response to matociquala franzeska suggested that the problem lies with a misalignment in the writer's head: namely the confusion between writing as capital-A Art and writing as a job. Which is apparently one of my hobby-horses, because I have Things To Say.
Now, don't get me wrong. Writing is art. I'll man the barricades on that one. But if you want to be published (as most writers do, no matter how ill-equipped they are for it), then writing is also a job and it requires you to treat it as such. Which means you can't get your nose out of joint when editors exercise their inalienable right to reject you, and also means (and slowly but surely we approach my point) that you can't delude yourself about what you're doing.
Which brings us to the Muse, and the terrible, pernicious myth of the Writer as put forth by the Romantics (some of whom at least were not practicing what they preached). I think it's deeply damaging to think of creativity as something that has to be inspired. Sometimes that happens, yes, and it's a fantastic feeling, but as aspects of creativity go, it is profoundly unreliable. The Romantics stuck us with this idea that Real Artists just ooze inspiration, that they can't turn around for the ideas crowding up behind them. But Neil Gaiman shows where that idea leads, in "Calliope," and it's a madman scrawling on the walls with the blood from the remains of his fingers.
And the obverse of this Romantic ideal is the notion that if you have to work at it, you're not a real artist. And its corollary, that working (as in, frex, writing more than one draft) will somehow revoke your membership in the Real Artists Club. Hacks work; artists somehow simply create. This is, of course, complete and utter nonsense. But it's insidious nonsense, and it's hard to get rid of.
Victoria Nelson, in On Writer's Block, makes the incredibly sensible comparison between writers and musicians (pointing out along the way, iirc, that another disservice done writers by the Romantics was to divorce writing from the other arts, as if somehow it was a special kind of creativity, with rules of its own). Musicians, even the geniuses, have to practice--the old joke about how to get to Carnegie Hall. So why, Nelson says, should we expect writers to have a Get Out of Jail Free card? Why should writers not have to practice? And the answer is, no reason, except that we've been culturally conditioned to think that writers don't work that way.
Like I said, insidious nonsense.
The Romantics also gave us the Tortured Artist, curse them, and we're still not free of that, either. It may be that artists of all stripes deserve special treatment (which is what the myth of the tortured artist is all about), but I think we get special treatment. We can create art. If we're good enough at it, we can be paid for what we have created. We aren't entitled to be paid, or praised, or even noticed; we're entitled to create. Everything else, as far as I'm concerned, is lagniappe.
And the fact that it's incredibly hard work?
Well, you know, if it was easy, it wouldn't be fun.
matociquala and arcaedia) are talking about professionalism and writing and why the two so often part company. In response to matociquala franzeska suggested that the problem lies with a misalignment in the writer's head: namely the confusion between writing as capital-A Art and writing as a job. Which is apparently one of my hobby-horses, because I have Things To Say.Now, don't get me wrong. Writing is art. I'll man the barricades on that one. But if you want to be published (as most writers do, no matter how ill-equipped they are for it), then writing is also a job and it requires you to treat it as such. Which means you can't get your nose out of joint when editors exercise their inalienable right to reject you, and also means (and slowly but surely we approach my point) that you can't delude yourself about what you're doing.
Which brings us to the Muse, and the terrible, pernicious myth of the Writer as put forth by the Romantics (some of whom at least were not practicing what they preached). I think it's deeply damaging to think of creativity as something that has to be inspired. Sometimes that happens, yes, and it's a fantastic feeling, but as aspects of creativity go, it is profoundly unreliable. The Romantics stuck us with this idea that Real Artists just ooze inspiration, that they can't turn around for the ideas crowding up behind them. But Neil Gaiman shows where that idea leads, in "Calliope," and it's a madman scrawling on the walls with the blood from the remains of his fingers.
And the obverse of this Romantic ideal is the notion that if you have to work at it, you're not a real artist. And its corollary, that working (as in, frex, writing more than one draft) will somehow revoke your membership in the Real Artists Club. Hacks work; artists somehow simply create. This is, of course, complete and utter nonsense. But it's insidious nonsense, and it's hard to get rid of.
Victoria Nelson, in On Writer's Block, makes the incredibly sensible comparison between writers and musicians (pointing out along the way, iirc, that another disservice done writers by the Romantics was to divorce writing from the other arts, as if somehow it was a special kind of creativity, with rules of its own). Musicians, even the geniuses, have to practice--the old joke about how to get to Carnegie Hall. So why, Nelson says, should we expect writers to have a Get Out of Jail Free card? Why should writers not have to practice? And the answer is, no reason, except that we've been culturally conditioned to think that writers don't work that way.
Like I said, insidious nonsense.
The Romantics also gave us the Tortured Artist, curse them, and we're still not free of that, either. It may be that artists of all stripes deserve special treatment (which is what the myth of the tortured artist is all about), but I think we get special treatment. We can create art. If we're good enough at it, we can be paid for what we have created. We aren't entitled to be paid, or praised, or even noticed; we're entitled to create. Everything else, as far as I'm concerned, is lagniappe.
And the fact that it's incredibly hard work?
Well, you know, if it was easy, it wouldn't be fun.
