I saw an advertisement for a university program offering a degree for writing for film, TV and advertising. I wonder how many people went for a degree in these areas and are making a living at it today? I bet not too many. I have a belief in my twisted head that the arts can’t really be taught as a formula where you will graduate and step into a career as much as it is an inborn, innate flame in your being. This can be inspired, mentored and instructed but to frame it into collegial formulas resulting in a diploma gives me pause.
Now, every aspiring writer wants their story heard or sold but not everyone wants to hear it. I’ve been writing since I was 10 years old when I started to enter a writing contest and scrapped it almost as soon as I started it. Instead, I was so inspired, I went on to write a full-length horror novel even Stephen King would blush at. Well and probably laugh at. The contest itself had a prompt written by him, but I didn’t care about winning a contest anymore. And over the years, after the rejection circuit and the reality of crashing my self-publishing ship onto a deserted island, I gave up probably too easy on the business end writing. I keep telling myself I will get back to it but never have.
There are so, so many writers and the proof of that is looking at the self publishing industry today. If you thought a B&N store was jammed packed with books! Here’s my theory from having talked to people in the writing industry, especially Hollywood, and for artists overall:
You really have to know someone and if you don’t then you have to earn those connections to get your work widely seen. Yeah, you can work hard at the contests and maybe get noticed that way but that percentage of being able to make career out of writing by climbing the ladder that way or in most artistic fields, just being an unknown, is very small. There are so many hoops to jump. Book tours, marketing, investing a lot of your own money, tons of rejection and you will never really truly know that ‘you got the right stuff’ till you probably bought worth your weight in a good cruise boat in expenditures on marketing, agents, learning, mistakes etc.
Frankly, I know this sounds bad, but I don’t want to be that guy because I know my writing is pretty darn good but its not career building good as I would like to think it is. If I had the momentum, the money, and the time to leave all other careers behind, I probably could have my skills leveled up even more perhaps? I think I am a good writer, an artist, but not a great marketer. I wasn’t at age 10 thinking “Yes writing AND marketing!” All that was left to the publishing houses and now publishing houses are trap doors linked to who knows who.
So the question around putting aside the money to improve skills further becomes do I want to risk it all to see if I have what it takes to be America’s Top Talent? Hmmm..well, in an industry that will steal your ideas (I’ve heard the stories) and the work that goes into paying people to help you make connections that may or may not happen if you may or may not be a good enough writer because no one is going to honestly tell you (they want your money or your ideas after all)….
I just never gotten motivated to be down for that fight. I am down for improving myself, and I don’t mind testing the waters. However, that’s not enough. You have to fight for it. I can write, put it out there and still work for living and let those who see it, see it. This by and large has been enough for me.
It’s hard because all I want to do is write. It’s like breathing. All the other stuff related to the business of writing sounds counter intuitive to me, so I am dying to a dream. I don’t like to face that I don’t have that tenacity of the California actor / actress willing to forsake it all and cut their losses for dream roles in Cali and just move there and wrestle with that world. It’s moving past all the negatives and just keeping the dream alive and before you right? That’s what these aspiring actors/actresses do!
Well, you also got to know that you know you are the one for that role! You know deep inside you that you are the it factor. Or at least, delusional enough to believe because no one will be honest to tell you otherwise. You are next on that list and why the hell aren’t they seeing it!
I suppose that is the deception with self-publishing. I can write and have the deception of publishing. I don’t have to fight with a publishing house, market or pay agents. I just won’t ever be famous or see my stuff on the big screen like the recent book made into a movie, Hail Mary. I won’t be at that level. The question is, is that alright for me?
For the most part it is alright sometimes, isn’t it? You want your art to inspire as many people as possible and if you can, you want it to be your main career and be your “legend”. I will not necessarily have so much of this. In some ways but not in large ways. Often, I’m alright with that. Sometimes I grieve the loss. It’s another form of death. Its 2 deaths. Seeing your own death ahead of you and the death of your art that few will ever remember. That’s a hard pill to swallow.
Whenever I see a book turned into a movie and I go see it, you know what I do after? I immediately drive home with passionate intention and write. Excited! I can do this too! I will better my stories! Or, I will start this new idea. One book I wrote in a few months just based off the soundtrack of a film. I entertain a fools hope my stories will be read by more people because others inspire me to write better and to write more.
The cost is a certain sadness that in reality, to date, I have under a 100 readers. And, at that, they don’t read the entire books that I do write LOL. My blog site is under 10 readers LOL. But there is a song I love “Do It Anyway.” So I do! Its a part of who you are and you never know who you are inspiring. The most important person to inspire? Yourself. Remember, if there is anyone you are doing this for, it is you, first and foremost. Everyone else is secondary.
Whatever it is you do, you really in the end have to do it for you. Most of us artists do it because it is in our blood. Like a part of our DNA practically. We aren’t in it for the applause. We do it because we have to. Breath. Eat. Shit. Art: It’s all one in the same. We just have a desire to inspire as many as we can or make the world think. Okay, we want some applause, alright? We aren’t egoless. So, whether your art is seen by fewer than 10 people or closer to 10,000 people or more than 100,000 people, you do it for you and F the system. There are plenty of spaces online or locally to show your work these days, so “Do it anyway.” Or don’t. Take a break. Who cares. Don’t let the systems drag you down. You, your artsy kind and your art is what makes the world go around baby, and don’t you forget it!
Jamison's Writing Jams 