Writing is Ugly Truth #272
The Madness of Money Making
When I took theoretical physics, the man I took it from was brilliant and also crazy. I figured this would make him an excellent teacher: I knew enough about theoretical physics before I took it to recognize that to understand it, you HAD to be crazy. So. if you started out crazy, you had an advantage; but if you started sane, you went insane. Or you just never really understood it.
For the record, I still don’t really understand it. (Not that this in any way precludes me being crazy.)
What the hell does this have to do with fiction? Well, fiction writers are probably ALL crazy going in, but since I’m apparently (as evidenced by my inability to grasp theoretical physics) crazy more like-a-writer than like-a-scientist, I have a better sense of what aspects of writing require the writer to be crazy.
I’ve given a lot of thought to this and I think the crazy-making factor of fiction…well, there are a few. There’s the talking to yourself part and the reading everything including milk cartons and shampoo bottles part. There’s the genuine appreciation of JoMO (The Joy of Missing Out). There’s staying up until three in the morning even when you have a big presentation at your day job tomorrow, and there’s preferring the company of books to people and the library or bookstore being the safe haven to stave off that panic attack you’re about to have over the presentation you didn’t do because you were up writing till the asscrack of dawn….
But these are not unique to fiction. Well, excepting maybe the milk cartons and shampoo bottles. But I know several homebodies who prefer puzzles to parties and plenty of gamers who stay up past their bedtimes. Fiction’s true madness-maker, the thing we must understand and appreciate is this: Our Art is also a Commodity. We don’t like that. And often don’t accept it.
Fiction is creation: Authors are gods of whatever universe they design, be it a fantasy world populated with orcs and unicorns or simply the quiet life of some poor sap living in a gentrified area of Chicago.
Fiction is alchemy: We spin ether into stories, like straw into gold.
Fiction is magick. We conjure people and places to life using a finite set of symbols on paper. (Or on lit screens.)
Fiction is also, however, a commercial good. I know we don’t like to think of it that way. We think it cheapens the creative process, But the reality is, if you want to make a living off your writing (which, maybe you don’t. That’s okay too. You can stop reading now. Or, continue reading through bouts of laughter and pity. Don’t worry, it won’t hurt my feelings.) someone needs to BUY what you WRITE. That is, you need consumers. Which means, like it or not, you’re offering a consumer good.
This reality can feel, especially for newer writers, quite grim. Because it means selling out. Right? Which makes success a *bad* thing, which in turn puts fiction writers between the rock of really wanting to create and get paid for it, and the hard place of commercial <gasp – you whore!> success.
If I were a Dream Profiteer I mean Life Transformation Coach I would tell you that this is the result of some micro-aggression or attention-provision failure on the part of your parents during your formative years and cure you for a mere $1,250 (USD). Since instead I make a living analyzing molecules, I will instead tell you that every effing artist in the Universe feels this way. At least to some degree. Money feels dirty. But most of us are accustomed to living indoors and prefer to eat food off a plate not a trashcan lid. This makes that dirty money a need. Plus, some people get famous despite themselves. In case that’s you, I’d like you to be prepared, not constrained.
So how to get ~Alright~ with commercial success? How to snuggle up with it and have it buy you flowers and chocolate like a lover, not just throw money at you like a trick?
Fuck if I know. I mean, if I knew the answer to that I probably wouldn’t be writing a blog for people who write because they have to, and also work for the same reason! Right?!? But wait… “…who write because they have to…” That’s not accidental wording. That is, in fact, the answer.
Stay true to your craft. As true as a carpenter or a seamstress, a sculptor or sketch artist. Write because it keeps you up at night, because the stories tug at your brain like a puppy tugs at your pant leg. Jim Carrey, in his brief and lovely documentary on painting made the statement “What you do in life chooses you…. Your vocation chooses you.”
If you HAVE to write, if it’s like a sickness—a piece of you that you would, at times, cut out of yourself with a grapefruit spoon were it corporeal—if you hate it but can’t live without it, you risk your day job to do it, sometime you skip your day job to do it, just like you skip parties and dinners and television; if all these things and THEN you write and edit and send, then you are not selling out. You are rising to your calling.
But, wait! I know you’re protesting. You’re going to say, now that I’ve laid it out for you, that the tipping point from creator to whore is the branding! The marketing! The other stuff I don’t know how to do and also don’t enjoy!
Get over yourself. Your brand is you. If your writing is truly yours—true to your interests and beliefs and told in your style—your voice will be recognizable. And that voice will be your brand.
As to marketing, all art, including fiction, is in service. Service to a higher consciousness, the Universe, the muse, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster…whatever. Your vocation chooses you. The stories find you. But they need a voice. Writing them isn’t the end, they need to be broadcast. What good is it to write the truth but never share it? It needs to be discovered, and sometimes the only way to have it discovered is to shout about it. Think about the town crier. People want truths to be broadcast.
And if enough people listen to the broadcast and <maniacal laughter> PAY you? You win.
Hey, someone’s got to.
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#272 Money (angel devil)
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