You approach art as a job. You do your 'art' as a means to make money.
I approach it as art.
Do you know how I got published? Many cities around the country (and the
world, for that matter) have an annual arts festival called "The Fringe
Festival." We were at a Philly festival and went to an event that mixed
spoken word, dance and music quite brilliantly. Anyway, upon entering the
venue you had the opportunity to possibly be a part of it. It involved
stepping up to a mike and answering the question "What Do You Dream?" People
were saying things like "world peace, my girlfriend," things like that.
I said "In black and white."
They made it into a sample and it was looped into the end of the
performance. In fact, it was me saying it over and over as the piece ended.
Afterwards a woman named Gina approached us and remarked that she had seen
me make the remark and how brilliant it was and was I a writer. Turns out
she was a lit agent and wanted me to send her my stuff.
A couple weeks later she contacted me and said she wanted to publish me. She
was upfront that I wasn't going to get rich, but my stuff would be out
there.
That suited me fine.
For you art is a job.
For me it's a passion.
aol.com> wrote in message
news:581a75e6-05de-4c8a-9170-53207b65077c@v26g2000prm.googlegroups.com...>>> I'm not worried. I couldn't care less. But they won't exist and I'm
>>> quite certain that you'll find an excuse not to reveal their names.
> .
>> If you don't care why do you want the names????
> .
> Because I worked hard to be a writer and an artist. I didn't close
> bars at four in the morning. I skipped parties and missed sleep.
> Instead, I sat in front of my computer learning new software, figuring
> out how to create vector images, how to animate on Flash.
>
> Because I sweated over my work; writing, polishing, refining and
> fretting over each word until my prose crackled. Until the jokes were
> actually funny. Until the story both made sense and was
> unpredictable. Until the characters came alive.
>
> Then, when the work was completed, I took my lumps, and faced the
> wrath of editors.
>
> I earned the right to be an artist and a writer. You have not.
>
> Do you know how I know for a fact that you're not a writer? Because
> you trashed the idea that I sold a script to Star Trek.
>
> Someone who broken through and gotten a piece published almost never
> indulge in such acts of petty ego. Published authors know what it
> takes to finish the piece and to get it on the shelves. You don't see
> Steve Martin publicly attacking Carrot Top - both understands the
> difficulty of what the other does. Parking attendants love to sneer
> at Sylvester Stallone's stupidity - Spielberg doesn't.
>
> When I run into people who has never written a thing, who claim to be
> an author because it makes them feel important, I tend to let them
> have it with both barrels. They're in the same category as the
> graffiti vandal who insists that he's an artist.
>
> When I see other people's work, I treat it as I would like my work to
> be treated: respectfully, but seriously. When I worked for Marvel,
> Johnny Romita taught me how to review other people's work. "Be
> honest, tell them what you think, but remember that they may becoming
> from an entirely different direction than you - and that other
> direction may be completely valid." For years, I've reviewed works at
> ComiCon, and I never once had an artist angrily storm away.
>
>
>
>
