Falling Into a Funk

This week along with brave souls Bayles & Orland, authors of Art & Fear: Observations On The Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking, we are going to fall into a funk. Don’t worry. I promise—funks are part of the process.

If you’re like most artists we know, you’re probably accustomed to watching your work unfold smoothly enough for long stretches of time, until one day—for no immediately apparent reason—it doesn’t. Hitting that unexpected rift is commonplace to the point of cliché, yet artists commonly treat each recurring instance as somber evidence of their own personal failure.  Nominees for Leading Role in a Continuing Artists’ Funk are: (1) you’ve entirely run out of new ideas forever, or (2) you’ve been following a worthless deadend path the whole time. And the winner is: (fortunately) neither. One of the best kept secrets of artmaking is that new ideas come into play far less frequently than practical ideas—ideas that can be reused for a thousand variations, supplying the whole framework for a whole body of work rather than a single piece.  (55-56)

Hmmmm? Doesn’t this go against everything we thought about what art is—and who we have to be to make it?  Original? Daring? Brilliant? Nope—it doesn’t. The passage above reminds me of Julia Cameron’s—The Vein of Gold—it’s not about being practical really—it’s about tapping into what we care about most. What calls to us, informs us, makes us who we are—we can use in a variety of ways. Think about what we read, view, and listen to as consumers. I do like things outside of my favorite genres—but I definitely have my favorites. Singer/songwriters from James Taylor to Tracy Chapman to the Indigo Girls. Books—family oriented middle grades—from Winn Dixie to Keeper to Harriet the Spy. Television—Law and Order to the Chicago Code to NYPD Blue. 

Whether it is a singer I love; a book I love, or a TV show I am addicted to the forats and these artists are all different but they resonate with a similar energy. For me, words matter. Families matter. Injustice and corruption matter. Put it all together and what you get is what I write about—families, justice, and words. It could be a blog post, an essay, a novel, a picture book, or even a poem. It could be a book set in the past as Between Us Baxters is, a novel set here today—as Truth with a Capital T  is—or it could be a picture book about the relationship between a boy and his world leader grandfather, ala Grandfather Gandhi (forthcoming--Antheneum).  Is it practical to write from this vein of gold? Perhaps. But more importantly it is simply what matters to me most.

Beginner’s Luck? Not For This Schmuck

Another Monday with our friends, Art and Fear. At least I hope they are getting to be our friends—our good friends—since they are always with us. Too bad David Bayles and Ted Orland are not, but we do have their gem of a book to keep us company and buoy our spirits. 

 

In Chapter V, Finding Our Work, Bayles and Orland go into depth on how our work is always honest. Brutally honest, if we look close enough.

Look at your work and it tells you how it is when you hold back or when you embrace. When you are lazy, your art is lazy; when you holds back, it holds back; when you hesitate, it stands there staring, hands in its pockets. But when you commit, it comes on like blazes. 

Bayles and Orland go on to talk about a visual artist friend who took up dance. She threw herself into her new passion, taking classes, dancing with abandon. Soon, she was asked to join a dance troupe. The thought of performing and dancing for others—and not just herself—had her dancing fall apart. Where she danced with abandon before now she was stilted and over thought each movement. She stopped—frustrated and depressed. But after a few weeks of withdrawal she is back at it. Finding her way in dance—balancing her passion with the expectations of others. 

At the Writers’ League of Texas where I used to work, a writer came in one day. She had questions about publishing and which class would benefit her the most. She said, “I have beginner’s luck. What I write first comes out the best, and when I revise things fall apart.” I listened and while I believe in the abandon of beginners luck—I told her her best work would come from a combination of abandon and critical thinking. I mentioned my own version of the above. Balancing our inner critic and the external critic makes work we begin to takes seriously amp up in importance. Our words can get as stiff and over thought as a dancer’s moves. Then we have to work to stay limber—we have to work to remind ourselves not to hesitate; to be brave. We have to make choices and commit—no holds barred. We then see these choices through to the end and then we can make new choices if need be. To be brilliant we can’t be timid. We must be bold. We must let ourselves fail and flail, because, you know, many novels are began on a whim but they aren’t completed, sold, or published on a whim. We can tap into the “beginner’s mind” but it is not necessary to stay there to succeed—that makes the hard work of art feel like a game of chance—and art isn’t about chance. It may feel like Russian roulette with the variety of critical opinions that pop up when we put our work out there—but the creating, the deep down soul searching a work requires daily is a muscle we build—and muscles grow over time and use. They don’t atrophy.

Art & Fear: Acceptance and Approval

Those wise men, David Bayles and Ted Orland, authors of Art& Fear are at it again. This time with words of wisdom on acceptance vs approval.

“The difference between acceptance and approval is subtle, but distinct. Acceptance means having your work counted as the real thing; approval means having your work liked.”

They go on to add:

The Art of Connection

…"Courting approval, even that of peers, puts a dangerous amount of work in the hands of the audience. Worse yet, the audience is seldom in a position to grant (or withhold) approval on the one issue that really counts—namely, whether or not you’re making progress in your work. They’re in a good position to comment on how they’re moved (or challenged or entertained) by the finished product, but have little knowledge or interest in your process.  Audience comes later. The only pure connection is between you and your work.”  (page 47, Art & Fear)

There can be a connection between author and audience—an important one—but the connection to one’s work, where one is that day, in the present moment and the only thing really an artist can count on. But as much as I believe in doing the work and being in the process first and foremost, the desire to be accepted and approved isn’t a condition merely of an artist—it is a human condition. Wrestling with any and all of my humanness, is what I think, and hope, makes me a decent writer. Of course, I can’t let the desire for approval get out of hand, and more than anyone else's approval what fiction writing and the study of craft has taught me is to seek my own approval—not just in my writing choices but in all my decisions.

Mystery & Magic

May & June: Observations on Art & Fear

My idea of  an "actor"

Back in the 90’s when I wanted to be an actor I had a stereotype in my head of what an actor should be.  An actor should be thin, wear back, stand tall, be unafraid, be adventurous, be sullen, be the life of the party, be out there—living on the edge. I don’t know why I thought this. Some of my friends, most of my friends were actors, and some of them were all those things but only some. I wasn’t an actor because I didn’t see myself as one. It came down to that…the mystery and the magic of a self-proclamation.

  I talk to students from seventeen to seventy who are afraid to call themselves writers. I get it. I understand it. But I do think holding up that banner and announcing to the world: I care about THIS; THIS is who I am is important. Publishers may accept our work or pass on it. I do in my role as editor of the YA and Children’s portion of Hunger Mountain, we may dub or bestow someone with the title “author” but what we can’t do is ever bestow the power of the self-definition of writer on someone. That has to be done long before publication in any form, arts journal, small press, or major publishing house can or will.

In Art & Fear, Bayles & Orland state: “ The belief that ‘real’ art possesses some indefinable magic ingredient puts pressure on you to prove your work contains the same….” And later when talking about comparing oneself to others, this is stated: “Whatever they (other artists) have is something needed to do their work—it wouldn’t help you in your work even if you had it."

I didn’t need to be tall and thin and wear black and be bold and adventurous to be an actor. Lots of actors aren’t. I also don’t need to be or do anything but be who I am as a writer. All I need to do is do the work, the exhausting but exhilarating work. I need to sit down and write. I need to capture my thoughts, work with them, shape them, and then share them. Share them to small groups first and hopefully with large audiences later. That is all the mystery and magic there is—hard but enjoyable work.