How To Be A Creative Professional

 Or, why artists starve and professionals don't

"Holiday" Season 2023

Oh, hi. You're probably reading this because you're desperate to make a living from your art, right? Boy, same.

You consider yourself an artist of some kind, but you want to be a creative professional. What's the difference, aside from the money part? Here's the difference:

Artists create for themselves.

Creative professionals create for others.

What does that mean? Well, let's break it down.

Let's start with music, just as a warmup. Now, what I really love doing is playing the guitar. When I'm not working or handling chores, I would basically rather be picking my guitar (or bass, which yes, is a different instrument...but I digress). It is my dream to be able to play any number of jazz compositions and stirring solo pieces like the jazz greats such as Django and Joe Pass and John McLaughlin did.

Of course, no one gives a shit. Aside from the fact that young people hate jazz...

You know more than three chords? No one cares, really. And it's irrelevant.

Your job as a musician is to be young, and dangerously skinny, with a full head of interesting hair. Tattoos are essential. Ridiculous clothes? Very important! And of course, you must place somewhere on the LGBTQIA+2 spectrum or everything is ruined forever. 

Can you play a full composition by yourself? Who cares? Can you even name 3 bands that influenced your group's music? WHO CARES?!

Am I an old man yelling at the clouds? Maybe. But I'm just illustrating that the work is not important - the product that people are looking for is. Professionals fill the needs people want filled. End of story.

Now let's look at writing. And yes, it's ironic that this is a blog post that I am actually spending time writing correctly and trying to phrase well, instead of a horrible pile of SEO slop that goes on forever. Because as we know, if it's not a horrible pile of SEO slop that goes on forever?

Google won't list it. 

And when Google doesn't list you, you don't exist. Like the old joke about where to hide a dead body is on page 3 of Google search results.

TBF I doubt the alternate search engines that only privacy nerds use will list it, but that's for reasons I'm still trying to understand. 

Anyway, novels are another very common form of personal expression. The expression "writing the great American novel" is a widely understood euphemism for a rat in the rat race trying to make something of themselves through creative expression.

But once again, no one is interested in your journey of self-exploration. As a former screenwriter, I can attest to professionals in the industry actively thwarting any form of self-exploration and expression of personal discovery. Not to mention how much they enjoy stepping on your creative dreams. (If I sound anything like those assholes, do let me know and I'll step back.)

Yes, people can still read, despite the best efforts of our media. Barnes And Noble is still a thing. People fill their homes with books and buy books to make themselves feel smarter. Yes, I've seen the Sarah Andersen cartoon about spending at the bookstore, and John Waters admonishing young singles to only do it with people with books.

But what are people buying? Are they searching bookshop.org for personal journeys of self-exploration? Are they buying challenging epics and daring journeys into the unknown?

Ah HA HA HAAA no.

They want fantastic journeys in faraway, exotic lands. Distant planets where the residents are creatures that resemble humans in ways that make them endearing to us, or somehow relatable. Or alternate realities where for some reason we couldn't figure out modern science and engineering, but we have the insights and knowledge we have. And the heroes have to be big and manly (always illustrated on the front cover with serious delts and rock-hard abs) and the women are perfect warrior-geniuses whose only obstacle in life is, well...

And your job as a novel writing professional is to crank out book after book in said fantasy land, with stories that can be plotted quickly with a beat sheet, and endings that are always just satisfying enough to warm readers' hearts, but with just enough lack of closure to motivate them to buy the next book.

Creative professionals do that day after tedious day, and buy houses. You'll be lucky to buy a vegan cheeseburger with the proceeds from your Kindle-published edgy volume.

Sorry. This is hard to accept, I know.

I'm not saying don't create just for yourself. You should, that's how you get better.

Just don't get your hopes up that anyone else, that you don't know personally, will care. That's not fair to yourself. And it's not going to help the career you're interested in doing.

Because at the end of the day, the girls in the front row decide who gets to be a star or not. Your focus is on them if you want to make it.

Good luck.

Now if you'll excuse me, that cloud over there is pissing me off...