Incidentally I believe that the end-events are not important in doing one’s creative stuff; you don’t need to be published to be a writer for example.
It was interesting (and a relief) to hear veeb say this here, because it’s what I believe too. Recently though, I had quite an interesting *argument* with an occasional Anonymous poster to these pages about when an artist (in the broadest sense of the word) can call themselves a writer.
You can be something that you’ve trained to be academically – e.g. I could go into a lab and perform some experiments tomorrow and I’d be a scientist. I’ve been trained and I know what I’m doing. To be something of a vocational nature you have to be judged to be that by your peers. Otherwise any fool could slap a bit of paint on a canvas and think of themselves as an artist, or any fool could scrawl out a few paragraphs and think of themselves as a writer, and immediately consider themselves on par with picasso or shakespeare. For academic things, the essence is in the ability to do it, for vocational things, the essence is in what you create and how that is recognized by the world at large.
To make out you are something when in reality you’re in the “training” phase (for want of a better analogy) really does smack of an overinflated ego sometimes, or worse still out and out pretentiousness. Something you might want to consider when making statements like “I am a writer and an artist”! It’s not belittling what you do or saying you shouldn’t write or paint or whatever, just be aware it doesn’t always come over in a good light!
This infuriated me – but, as usual, in the heat of the discussion I lost the ability to put the counter arguments that were going through my mind into words – and so I don’t think I put my case in the best way. I do feel that these feelings (illustrated above) do point to some underlying jealousy(?? – it’s the only word I can think of at the moment…) regarding art and the artistic. Especially when the argument is followed by…
What I do have though through my time in London and through various contacts I have is a lot of experience in meeting media types and people who call themselves “artists”. And without exception they are all egotistical, shallow and consider themselves far more gifted and important than they actually are. I have also met some genuine published authors and producers – people who’s work speaks for itself – and they have all been charming and modest. Not neccessarily famous though. As in most things in life there are those that talk it, and those that just get on and do it, and the latter group are usually by far the more genuine people.
If you still want to call yourself a writer/artist in those specific, clear terms (as in “I am a writer” and not “oh, I do a bit of writing”, “I’d like to be published someday” etc.), then fine, it’s your choice. But I’d strongly warn about being caught up in a circle of self-belief and denial – all these media types I know of relied on the continued “support” of similar people to propagate the myth that they were right and that people who questioned their work or beliefs were wrong, or phillistines, or simply “not gifted enough to interpret my work”. But what value does reassurance have when it merely comes from people who want you to offer them the same reassurances? Are they just telling you what you wish to hear because they wish to hear something similar back? Genuine modesty (as opposed to straight self-depreciation) is a hugely underrated virtue, and all I was trying to do was point out that you appear to be falling into the trap of being driven by a desire to be seen as a certain thing, rather than being willing to achieve the thing itself and then be judged on that (in this case, being a writer as opposed to writing something and then putting that work in the public domain). And by so clearly stating what you feel yourself to be and what you wish to be seen as, when you essentially don’t have much to show for it at this point, may mean a lot of people will think of you at worst as being very arrogant, pretentious and a showoff for doing so, and at best a joke.
I recognise the perspective he’s expressing. I felt similarly about music, since I had been classically trained in flute, keyboards, singing, theory, composition, up to a fairly high level by the time i was 18, and could easily have gone on to train to be a professional flautist or composer if that’s what had floated my boat. I never called myself a musician though, because I had nothing inside me that yearned to be such. I’d just ridden the wave of my mother’s ambition.
Since then, whenever I listened to music, classical, contemporary or anything else, I found I was judging it for technique, completely missing the meaning whether the skill was lacking or not – but especially when the skill was lacking.
Only recently did I start seeing the art (or lack of it) in music and was able to see past the technique.
I wonder if what your friend is really complaining about are the people who think they have technique or skill, but have no soul and no art, and yet call themselves artists?
I could say that I would feel justified in calling myself a writer when I’m earning money from it, or have won some kind of competition, but really there’s more to it than that. You have to have the passion as well. You have to not care about external validation, even as you seek it, because you’re doing art for yourself.
And to be honest I’d say that someone who is ‘unpublished’ but has the passion has more claim on the words ‘artist/musician/writer’ than those who do their art professionally, but who have nothing of their own to say and no emotion to express.
For myself, I say I am a writer, because I write, every day, and it is the most important thing I do. We have another word for novel writers who get paid – authors – so perhaps the same issue does not apply so much to writers as it does to musicians and artists. I would not, for example, presume to call myself an author until I was published. That would be the height of arrogance.
I would not, for example, presume to call myself an author until I was published. That would be the height of arrogance.
I would agree with you there. When I was about to start this journal and was considering my *username* I did idly think about the_author, but dismissed it almost immediately (at the time I wasn’t sure why) because it just didn’t feel right. Now that you mention it, I think it was probably because at some subconscious level I did see it as, if not arrogant then, pretentous.
(in fact, I think the only time I ever have used the term “the author” about myself has been either in jest, or when I wrote a *column* (and I use the term loosely) for the sixth form magazine and used a picture of a guy strung up in a noose as my bi-line!)
Upon thinking about it, I don’t think I would use the terms *novelist* or *authors* to describe me even when I am published – *writer* seems to suit me just fine, and it somehow encapsulates all the passion and the art that I put into my writing just fine!
Yes, better to say you’re a writer and have people assume (hopefully wrongly) that you’re unpublished. It says everything.
Interesting…
…that those who write see a distinction between published and unpublished? I mean, in music you are a musician or not a musician, regardless of whether you play a concert or have a record out right? There appears to be no term for what one is after the “end-event”. Same with art – one paints, one is a painter, and by default an artist.
Your observer who said “…any fool could slap a bit of paint on a canvas and think of themselves as an artist, or any fool could scrawl out a few paragraphs and think of themselves as a writer, and immediately consider themselves on par with picasso or shakespeare” sounds a bit frustrated and too concerned with comparing people to figures from history.
What’s important is that there really is room for everyone to do their thing, whether we think it’s bad or good, tedious or excellent. That’s not to say that I don’t encounter a lot of creativity that makes me just think “Why?!?” in total disbelief, but I’d never question anyone’s right to call themselves what they want or believe it, since it’s hardly going to stop me from doing anything, and if it makes them feel better about what they do then *it’s a good thing*.
Interestingly dictionary.com has some interesting observations on the difference between “author” and “write” as verbs…
Re: Interesting…
Point of interest – I have had a CD of my music published, and I’ve gigged, but I NEVER called myself a musician……… I guess that wasn’t my end-event.
Re: Interesting…
…that those who write see a distinction between published and unpublished?
Only insofaras other people dictate how you may define yourself in accordance with whether you are published or not. If you appreciate what I mean when I say I am a writer, then I am a writer. If not, then I am merely someone who puts a couple of hours a day into writing.
Re: Interesting…
Are you okay with that idea, that other people dictate how you may define yourself?
Re: Interesting … umm…
…other people dictate how you may define yourself…
I’m not sure if that was what I was saying? I define myself as a writer when I write, because that’s what I do – write. I’m writing stories that interest and engage me – I have to, otherwise I would be bored and uninterested. I also hope that if go back to it, draft, draft, and draft again (taking in comments and criticisms from those that I allow to read it in unfinished form) that it will become the best that it can be, and that someone will therefore like it enough to publish it and make it available to many more people.
However, that last act of making it available to many more people isn’t what defines me as a writer. It’s what might define me as published author, but not me, as what I am.
Re: Interesting…
My life is testimony that I am not. But in this case, there are far bigger fish to fry.
Re: Interesting…
But in this case, there are far bigger fish to fry.
Now why didn’t I think of that? So succinct. So accurate. So…
any fool could slap a bit of paint on a canvas and think of themselves as an artist, or any fool could scrawl out a few paragraphs and think of themselves as a writer, and immediately consider themselves on par with picasso or shakespeare
Perhaps what I would say is that it’s fine for them to think the first part, but not the second which is a completely different issue.
Which is more or less what my first response in the original email thread: that being an artist/writer is in the doing, but that by just doing (in no way) does not make you a Picasso or Shakespeare (or in the case of Science and Scientists) an Einsteinn…
And…
it doesn’t imply that you think you are either. I think the majority of “do-ers” just get on and do, whilst those that “don’t” tend to stand back and carp, and it is *they* who say “look at them, who do they think they are?…*famous person from history*??!?” when really all the doer wants to do is “do”, and share it with others.
Re: Interesting…
Hmnn, yes… I am a writer because I write. I hope that I might be (or become) a good enough writer that others will want to read and enjoy my work and derive pleasure from it.
In this there isn’t really a distinction between published and unpublished accept that with the former more people can enjoy it (and someone obviously liked it enough to spend some money making it available to more people).