The War of Art

"Hitler wanted to be an artist.  Ever seen one of his paintings?  Neither have I.  Resistance beat him...It was easier for Hitler to start World War II than it was for him to face a blank square of canvas." (Steven Pressfield)

There is nothing more intimidating than a blank canvas to an artist or a blank sheet of paper to a writer.  Author Steven Pressfield, author of The War of Art, tells us how to overcome "creative block".  He maintains that everyone has a calling.  However, in pursuing your calling, you are often sabotaged by others, or more commonly, by yourself.  

Hitler wanted to be an artist.  He took his inheritance and moved to Vienna where he applied to The Academy of Fine Arts and later the School of Architecture.  Failing to get in to either school, he eventually gave up on his dream.  "Resistance beat him...It was easier for Hitler to start World War II than it was for him to face a blank square of canvas." (https://www.amazon.ca/War-Art-Through-Creative-Battles/dp/1936891026)

"Resistance is the almost supernatural force which seeks to keep us from finding our true calling." (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20141027155445-38407885-the-resistance-how-steven-pressfield-helped-me-to-drop-the-term-writer-s-block)  The closer we are to finding our true calling, the fiercer the resistance becomes.  You could also define resistance as your "inner critic".  As a writer, you might be familiar with this mantra put forward by Matthew Webb:  "You're not really a writer.  You'll never finish this book.  You're not exceptional at anything."

The Resistance focusses on the enormity of the task that you have before you rather than dividing it up into manageable steps.  "Small victories over ourselves and over Resistance, have an accelerating effect."  For instance, after a few weeks, a 20 minute workout one day can form a daily habit.  Forming a good habit is a victory, but so too is breaking a bad habit.  Matthew Webber compares it to standing up to the classroom bully:  "the perception was far worse than the reality".  The more we conquer our bad habits, the more energy we have to tackle Resistance.

It is easy to be motivated about a new project.  However, it isn't always easy to stay motivated.  Before you know it, that list of chapters that you drafted for your new book is just collecting dust.  Matthew Webber suggests ways to get "re-motivated":

• keep visual reminders near your desk (ex. family photos, religious art, reminders of past victories)
• mark a wall calendar with your progress and milestones
• build a YouTube playlist with motivational stories
• start a visual log of your progress

http://sunnibrown.com/2010/05/the-war-of-art-visual-book-summary

Elizabeth Gilbert's Your Elusive Creative Genius

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, delivered a speech about how a creative genius resides in all of us; we just have to tap into it.  After the success of her memoir, people approached her and asked if she was worried about topping the success she had just experienced.  However, Elizabeth pointed out that, over twenty years before, people had the same reaction when she first announced that she wanted to become a writer.

Elizabeth goes on to mention how writers, and creative people in general, tend to be tortured souls who suffer from depression (Ernest Hemingway committed suicide; Norman Mailer was a raging alcoholic; Stephen King was addicted to drugs).  A writer's career is tied directly to his or her creative success.  Something like writer's block can spell the end of a literary career.

The author mentions how the Romans and the Greeks believed that creativity came from a separate spirit, something the Greeks called a "daemon", that lived in an artist's studio.  However, during the Renaissance, people started to believe that genius came from the self, rather than from a separate entity.  Elizabeth believes that such a belief puts too much of a burden on the shoulders of the artist.  "[I think] the pressure of that has been killing off our artists fort he past 500 years," she explains.

Elizabeth gives the example of poet Ruth Stone who used to work in the fields of rural Virginia.  All of a sudden, she would fell a poem coming on:  "it was like a thunderous train of air".  She would race to the farmhouse for a piece of paper and a pen before she forgot the poem, furiously scribbling the words down from end to beginning, the way she had remembered it.  Elizabeth says that is how the creative process works for her as well.  It is elusive:  she must catch it when it's whizzing by.
Elizabeth compares herself to a mule:  she must sweat and labour every day to get to her destination. The road is not easy.  It is full of bumps and twists.  But her stubbornness allows her to persevere.

Elizabeth drives home her point with the following paragraph:

And what I have to sort of keep telling myself when I get really psyched out about that {duplicating her initial success] is don't be afraid.  Don't be daunted.  Just do your job.  Continue to show up for your piece of it, whatever that may be.  If your job is to dance, do your dance.  If the divine, cockeyed genius assigned to your case decides to let some sort of wonderment be glimpsed for just one moment through your efforts, then Ole! And if not, do your dance anyhow.  And Ole! to you nonetheless.I believe this and I feel that we must teach it.  Ole! to you, nonetheless, just for having the sheer human love and stubbornness to keep showing up.(https://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius/transcript?language=en)

http://www.wearesalt.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Elizabeth_Gilbert-min.jpg

Tom Wolfe's "The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamlined Baby"

Tom Wolfe had a serious case of writer's block.  And he had a deadline to keep.  Finally, he decided to simply type up his notes and send them to the editor of Esquire who would give the assignment to another writer.  Tom sat down at his typewriter and, several coffee cups later, he typed his last word. He delivered his 49 pages of notes to Esquire.  The editor simply stroked out "Dear Byron" and published the essay as is.  The result was "The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamlined Baby".

In the 1960's, the car culture was alive and well in California.  Whereas in previous decades, the automobile had been a vehicle to get its occupants from Point A to Point B, by the middle of the decade, it had become much more than that.  It was a symbol of success, of which there was much in Los Angeles.  It also fulfilled the need for speed:  drag racing was all the rage.

Wolfe travelled to Los Angeles -- to the city of the "scorched boulevards", boutiques, bowling alleys, skating rinks and taco drive-ins -- to experience the culture.  What he found was a culture that, rather than worshipping giant heads as the Easter Islanders did, they worshipped cars.  Los Angeles youth would meet at something new called the Teen Fair.  They would arrive in their custom cars at what resembled amusement parks.  A hully gully band blasted music, all electrified, from a high platform. Young women, wearing tight slacks and bouffant hairdoes, danced the bird, the hully gully and the shampoo.

What stood out about these teenagers was their uniformity, as Wolfe explained:

"[If] you watched anything at this fair very long, you kept noticing the same thing.  These kids are absolutely maniacal about form.  They are practically maniacal about it.  For example, the dancers: none of them ever smiled.  They stared at each other's legs and feet, concentrating to do them exactly right.  And all the bouffant kids all had form, wild form, but form with rigid standards, one gathers. Even the boys.  Their dress was prosaic -- Levi's, Slim Jims, sport shirts, T shirts, polo shirts, but the form was consistent -- a stovepipe silhouette.  And they all had the same hairstyle...They were all wonderful slaves to form." (http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic1292219.files/Week%208/Kandy%20Kolored%20by%20Tom%20Wolfe.pdf)

Booths lined the perimeter of the grounds of the Teen Fair, hocking items like shoes, guitars, and of course, cars.  Wolfe talked to reps from the Ford Motor Company.  Ford was attempting to corner the market on this new "teenage lifestyle".  As Wolfe maintained:  "If Ford can get them hooked on Fords now, after the kids are married they'll buy new Fords."

These weren't just any Fords, though.  They were part of the Ford Custom Car Caravan.  Customizing was the new trend in California.  An autobody man took the original body of a car and chopped and channeled it.  He jacked up the back end.  He streamlined it.  He added lots of chrome.  And he likely repainted it.  Gone were the days of Henry Ford who said that you could order your Ford in any colour, as long as it was black.

That is where the custom car designers came in.  Wolfe talked to the owner of Kustom City.  He showed the writer around his shop.  At Kustom City, the owner didn't create cars, he created "objets d'arts".  He mixed "krazy kolors" which represented the rebelliousness of the new teen culture:  orange, purple, yellow and violet.   His cars made a statement.  And he didn't just make cars for teens.  His famous customers included Jayne Mansfield, Elvis Presley and Liberace.  In 1957, the custom car owner started hearing from the Detroit auto companies.  They wanted to know what teenagers were going for.  However, he admitted they were limited:  they had to "design a car for the farmer in Kansas and the hotdog in Hollywood".

Cars are no longer the status symbols they once were.  We have said goodbye to the streamlined cars, to the muscle cars, to the custom cars, to the gas guzzlers.  Cars have become, once again, vehicles to get us from Point A to Point B.

http://www.theampalcreative.com/2011/12/kandy-kolored-tangerine-flake-streamline-baby/

Eights Steps to Becoming a $100,000 a Year Freelance Writer

"But if you want to consistently make $100,000 a year as a freelance writer, you need to avoid the poverty mentality that holds so many writers back from earning a high income.  A doorman in New York City earns around $30,000 annually.  If an unskilled laborer can make $30,000 just for opening a door, surely you can earn $50,000 to 100,000 for your skills." (Michelle Ruberg)

So, you want to make a living at freelance writing.  Is it possible?  Or will you just be another starving artist trying to make ends meet?  According to Michelle Ruberg, author of the Writer's Digest Handbook of Magazine Articles, it is possible.  You first have to distinguish the act of writing from the business of writing.  Robert Bly decided to become a freelance writer in 1982.  For the first two years, he struggled, but he kept tapping away at his typewriter.  By the third year, he was raking in $100,000 a year and he's never looked back,  Read about his experience in his book Getting Started as a Freelance Writer.

Here are Michelle Ruberg's eight steps to follow to become a lucrative freelance writer:

1.  Get serious about money

As Michelle Ruberg states:  "But if you want to consistently make $100,000 a year as a freelance writer, you need to avoid the poverty mentality that holds so many writers back from earning a high income.  A doorman in New York City earns around $30,000 annually.  If an unskilled laborer can make $30,000 just for opening a door, surely you can earn $50,000 to $100,000 for your skills." 

2.  Set daily revenue goals

Imagine you set a goal of $100,000 per year.  That's $2000 per week or $400 per day (for a 5-day week).  Keep in mind that some days you will be sending out query letters or participating in self-promotion.  However, on average you should be earning $400 per day.

3.  Value your time

Time is money.  Make a timeline.  Figure out how much you will be paid per hour rather than per word or per assignment.  Keeping in mind the $400 per day figure, aim to make $50 per hour.  Remember that you get paid to write, research and interview.  If you can find someone to do the other tasks better and for a cheaper fee, do it.  Time is precious; it's a non-renewable resource.

4.  Be more productive

Rise an hour early to work uninterrupted.  Nancy Flynn, author of The $100,000 Writer (http://www.amazon.com/The-100-Writer-Nancy-Flynn/dp/1580622658), avoids meetings and uses the telephone or e-mail instead.

5.  Nix Writer's Block

Write daily to ensure a constant flow.  If you do encounter writer's block, make sure you have many projects about various subjects on the go.  If you're stuck on a headline, set it aside to work on another article.  If all else fails, go for a walk to clear the cobwebs from your head.

6.  Get Paid More

Don't haggle over nickels and dimes.  Rather than asking for a five cent a word pay raise, target the high paying magazines to start with.  It will be much easier to meet your $400 per day quota if you are paid $2000 per assignment rather than $200 per assignment.

7.  Create a demand

Try to remain busy most of the time.  The way to do this is to specialize.  For example, write about subjects like gardening, waste water management or investment.  Specialize in format by writing only how to articles, children's articles or online venues.  The more in demand you are, the more money you will earn.  If your demand exceeds your supply, you will eventually be able to pick and choose your assignments.

8.  Get repeat business

When you get repeat assignments you become familiar with your client and organization.  A working relationship develops which saves both you and your client time.  Michelle Ruberg recommends three tips towards achieving this goal:  give each job your best effort; provide excellent customer service; and ask the editor for another assignment (ask and you shall receive).

Above all, believe that you can do it!

theskilledscribe.com