ANOTHER OPEN LETTER TO WRITERS AND ARTISTS
By Jonathan D Shaw
I feel compelled to add a little addendum to my previous Open Letter. While I’m always willing to help other writers and share freely of what I have found trudging my own stumbling path, time constraints for a working writer are a real concern. And I am a working writer today.
A writer, I have found, lives in a solitary little world, sometimes with faith, hope, inspiration and persistence as his only ”friends”… on some levels I believe that’s exactly the way it’s meant to be. It’s natural selection; only the strong will survive. The Muse can be a bullwhip-cracking blood-thirsty ball-breaking bitch, but any real artist is a warrior who, by virtue of that fact, must be willing to laugh in her face, piss in the world’s eye, and simply keep going. And the best way to help and inspire others is by doing the hard solitary work oneself, diving head-first into the festering wounds of one’s own soul a day at a time, and finally coming up with gold… wait, on second thought, it’s the ONLY way!
While I’m always happy to share my experience, strength and hope with other artists, I’m also aware that the best way to do that is to continue practicing my own art and putting it out there for people to see.
Most of the people who’ve most inspired me and guided my own crooked steps all along the way have been other writers; good writers, and mostly dead ones who weren’t around to give me first hand advice or criticism.
The best teachers teach by example.
Stephen King — who’s not by any means one of my favorite writers, by the way, but is a very successful one — even wrote a very good little book on the subject called ”On Writing.” I read it from cover to cover, along with a hundred other books on the subject. From those books, I took what I needed and left the rest. My favorite writing teacher is Natalie Goldberg. I recommend her books to any writer, beginning or published; I’ve also sought the help and guidance of creative writing teachers and professional book editors, who are abundant out there, and I gladly paid them generously for their help.
It’s important for an artist to be self-supporting, I believe. The more one is willing to support one’s own efforts, it appears, the more the universe seems to magically open all sorts of invisible doors to manifest the kind of ”outside” support we all crave.
As Charles Bukowski, one of my own early mentors, told me when we first met, ”if yer gonna be a writer, then ya write. And then ya sit and sit and ya write some more. That’s it, baby! What ya don’t do is sit around talking about writing all day long with other people who say they wanna write. That’s the fuggin kiss of death!”
And please remember, my professional opinion is only just another opinion. And ya know what they say about opinions…
There’s a very fine line, I find, between ”helping” others and enabling them to be lazy in their own work. I walk a daily tightrope with that kinda shit in my personal life, and by writing what I wrote to encourage other artists, I sure don’t wanna encourage them to ask from others what they’re not willing to do for themselves. That would be doing a tremendous disservice to my fellow artists, and that’s the last thing I’d ever wanna do… just sayin’.
I should mention that what I’m saying here is not directed at anybody in particular, but just a general statement of principles which I find important to express all around.
Hopefully it will serve to temper any misunderstandings that may arise from other statements I’ve made. It’s a delicate balance, and there are no absolute truths in this shit. That much I do know is true.
JS – you’re reminding me of Steven Pressfield recently with your writerly advice, which I find nice. http://www.stevenpressfield.com/
Thank you. Steven Pressfield is a hero. I loved his book, as well as his preface to Robert Mckee’s book, STORY, which I didn’t like as much.
It’s nice to be counted among such good company. Cheers!
Great advice and reminds me of a quote I often use to remind myself to stay focused on the “inner-voice” which is the most important one to listen to for any Artist, I believe.
“Self-actualized people are independent of the good or bad opinion of others.” – Wayne Dyer