I've had a lot of discussions over my lifetime about success and all the trappings that go a long with it. Most define success in the sense of monetary legacies left to ones family, like the Winchester fortune that allowed a woman to continue building on her house, even when the new space made no sense to anyone but the heir. But not all of those who influenced the world gained success in their lives while they were here on Earth, yet their legacies live on even though they died as paupers.
Let me go deeper into my thought process here, but before we go, here's a lunch sack with some food in case we get separated and a flashlight, because the dark recesses of my mind where we're going to delve can be pretty scary at times....
I have always heard that old saw "Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it". That's what happened to some of the "success stories" from my era like Samuel George Davis Jr - who everyone knew as "Sammy Davis Jr", a brilliantly talented gentleman who was a singer, dancer, actor, musician and impressionist. He started his career at the tender age of three in vaudeville with his father and one of his father's friends. He lost his left eye in a car accident in 1954 and often used that injury as a joke in his act. He made millions throughout his lifetime, but because of extravagant spending habits and poor management of his finances by his financial advisors, he died 15 million dolars in debt, mostly to the IRS. Despite his rise to the top in a pre-Civil Rights for blacks era that is still looked upon as an example of what can be achieved even when faced with hatred throughout ones life for nothing more provocative than the color of ones skin, he is also one example of those who achieve their life's wish, but still don't leave that monetary legacy for the family. There are many such "successful with their wish for fame but not successful at managing money" stories that one can find, especially in this era of being able to look up everything on the internet, but I'm just going to move on to the next type of artist. (I'll leave a link at the bottom of this post should you wish to look at Sammy and some of the others I'm going to mention in closer detail, okay?)
I've also heard about those who were brilliant talents during their lifetimes, but who didn't gain any sort of fame while they were still with us. My mother-in-law, in particular, loved to bring up these people as examples of why I needed to "stop goofing around with writing" and put my energy into things that truly mattered - like caring for her son and any offspring we produced. In her humble opinion, anyone who had children to raise had no business indulging in any form of art that would never see any monetary achievement in the real world.
One of her favorite subjects in this "live your dreams and die in poverty" speeches was the man who inspired the title for today: Vincent Van Gogh. I thought everyone knew the story of this marvelous talent whom modern psychologists are still trying to figure out, as he was brilliant, but also a prime example of mental illness in his short 37 years on the planet. His paintings have inspired the artistic endeavors of millions of artists and musicians, yet the critics of his time thought him unbalanced. Because his work was very different from what was popular at the time, he never found the critical acclaim while he was alive that would have made him a wealthy man, and when he purportedly shot himself in the chest with a revolver (which was never found) and walked to a hospital, where he died 23 hours after the shooting with the bullet lodged next to his spine, he was also penniless.
So now comes the question that keeps me awake some nights and sometimes causes me to walk away from my writing - at least until the characters become so adamant that I complete their stories that I am forced to sit and write for my own sanity.
Which is better "success"? To gain the material wealth that would have convinced my mother-in-law that I was "successful" in my writing career, or to leave behind the work, perhaps to be later discovered by a future generation as a hidden talent that escaped the critical acclaim of the time, yet left a learning legacy for them to follow?
From my current status, I am as poor as a church mouse, but still occasionally getting a marvelous thrill when my work is mentioned, even in passing, in someone elses speech about following ones dreams. (One of the book covers from Northern Bard Publications was mentioned by an author who had one of the models at his talk in an axample of "how to catch the eye of your readership by showing the characters you're writing about". I didn't get to see it, but she was very pleased that we were both mentioned despite the fact that I haven't become a "New York Times Best Seller" - which involves getting bookstores to put out the books of indie publishers so that the books can be sold in the confines of a brick-and-mortar store instead of just online as Kindles, Nooks and such.)
As I noted for my husband when he recently opened one of my credit card statements and blew a gasket about how much money I've spent trying to get Northern Bard off the planning board and into the money-making status that his mother taught him was the only measure of success, I've made a bet on myself that I can eventually make enough in book sales to pay off the gamble of self-publishing. Just in the past year, I've doubled my meager income from book sales from an average of $20 per year. He, of course, schooled by his mother that the only form of success that matters isn't the nickle-and-dime variety that I've been enjoying over the past 19 years, but "the big payday", is of her same opinion that I'm "wasting my time" on my writing. If I can't make enough in the next year to bring my credit card balance for the business down to zero and show a profit, I should "stop wasting time" and concentrate entirely on making money so that we can leave a financial legacy for our children to be proud of when we die...
And please don't tell me to bring up the fact that there are millions upon millions who have "hobbies" upon which they spend tons of money, tons of time, and see not even a single thin dime in return, as with his fly tying fetish. (He does "side work" for people who can't afford the professional rates charged by many in the career he's chosen, so he's making enough to support his "hobby" while helping out the poor at the same time. In order to qualify my "hobby" in his mind, I need to stop spending more money than I earn on my "hobby" in order to make it worth the time I spend at it.)
In short, my daily life at the moment is trying to balance my "struggling artist syndrome" with my "need to make the money to pay the bills syndrome", and long conversations with friends and relations about those whom I admire, but who died before they became well known, give me a constant cause to keep rethinking my chosen career. Even as I sit here this morning, writing this blog and aching in every muscle from the physical aspects of the job I'm currently holding to help pay off those bills while the characters from the current work in progress are trying to gain my attention and tell me that THIER story should matter more to me that getting the groceries and doing the laundry and catching up on yesterdays dishes, I find myself torn between the real world and the "hobby" that keeps me awake at night, seeing scenes that I should have written out during my busy day. I keep telling myself that there is a "happy medium", where I can balance out the fiscal need for money with the mental need to get these stories out of that tiny little dark space where they live and breed when I'm not watching.....
But then a little voice, sounding very much like my deceased mother-in-law, speaks up from the darkest of the dark recesses, where I firmly believe that there is a well like the one in the horror movie "The Ring" that houses all of those who have been hyper-critical of me all my life.
"How are you ever going to make money at writing when you couldn't even get a single person to show up at your first and only book signing two years ago?"
Have you ever wanted to shout out loud, regardless of any strange looks you get at the time, "Shut up, you!" in an attempt to get one of those inner voices to go away for a while?
*le sigh*
So, here is the link I promised above to assist you, should you wish to investigate some of those "struggling artists of the past" who have influenced the world around us, but not while they still lived. I'd dearly love to hear from some of you as to your opinions on whether we should concentrate on only financial success or if we should, in the interest of possibly being the voice in the desert for some artist of the future, continue to produce the works that we are driven by some inner demon to "waste time" on. I'd also love some links to some of your works, particularly if my words here have encouraged you to purge your own inner demons whether you're making money at the venture or not....
http://mentalfloss.com/article/28010/10-cultural-giants-who-died-coinless
Blessed be, my constant readers, and may you find the place where you and your demons can live together in peace and harmony.
Let me go deeper into my thought process here, but before we go, here's a lunch sack with some food in case we get separated and a flashlight, because the dark recesses of my mind where we're going to delve can be pretty scary at times....
I have always heard that old saw "Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it". That's what happened to some of the "success stories" from my era like Samuel George Davis Jr - who everyone knew as "Sammy Davis Jr", a brilliantly talented gentleman who was a singer, dancer, actor, musician and impressionist. He started his career at the tender age of three in vaudeville with his father and one of his father's friends. He lost his left eye in a car accident in 1954 and often used that injury as a joke in his act. He made millions throughout his lifetime, but because of extravagant spending habits and poor management of his finances by his financial advisors, he died 15 million dolars in debt, mostly to the IRS. Despite his rise to the top in a pre-Civil Rights for blacks era that is still looked upon as an example of what can be achieved even when faced with hatred throughout ones life for nothing more provocative than the color of ones skin, he is also one example of those who achieve their life's wish, but still don't leave that monetary legacy for the family. There are many such "successful with their wish for fame but not successful at managing money" stories that one can find, especially in this era of being able to look up everything on the internet, but I'm just going to move on to the next type of artist. (I'll leave a link at the bottom of this post should you wish to look at Sammy and some of the others I'm going to mention in closer detail, okay?)
I've also heard about those who were brilliant talents during their lifetimes, but who didn't gain any sort of fame while they were still with us. My mother-in-law, in particular, loved to bring up these people as examples of why I needed to "stop goofing around with writing" and put my energy into things that truly mattered - like caring for her son and any offspring we produced. In her humble opinion, anyone who had children to raise had no business indulging in any form of art that would never see any monetary achievement in the real world.
One of her favorite subjects in this "live your dreams and die in poverty" speeches was the man who inspired the title for today: Vincent Van Gogh. I thought everyone knew the story of this marvelous talent whom modern psychologists are still trying to figure out, as he was brilliant, but also a prime example of mental illness in his short 37 years on the planet. His paintings have inspired the artistic endeavors of millions of artists and musicians, yet the critics of his time thought him unbalanced. Because his work was very different from what was popular at the time, he never found the critical acclaim while he was alive that would have made him a wealthy man, and when he purportedly shot himself in the chest with a revolver (which was never found) and walked to a hospital, where he died 23 hours after the shooting with the bullet lodged next to his spine, he was also penniless.
So now comes the question that keeps me awake some nights and sometimes causes me to walk away from my writing - at least until the characters become so adamant that I complete their stories that I am forced to sit and write for my own sanity.
Which is better "success"? To gain the material wealth that would have convinced my mother-in-law that I was "successful" in my writing career, or to leave behind the work, perhaps to be later discovered by a future generation as a hidden talent that escaped the critical acclaim of the time, yet left a learning legacy for them to follow?
From my current status, I am as poor as a church mouse, but still occasionally getting a marvelous thrill when my work is mentioned, even in passing, in someone elses speech about following ones dreams. (One of the book covers from Northern Bard Publications was mentioned by an author who had one of the models at his talk in an axample of "how to catch the eye of your readership by showing the characters you're writing about". I didn't get to see it, but she was very pleased that we were both mentioned despite the fact that I haven't become a "New York Times Best Seller" - which involves getting bookstores to put out the books of indie publishers so that the books can be sold in the confines of a brick-and-mortar store instead of just online as Kindles, Nooks and such.)
As I noted for my husband when he recently opened one of my credit card statements and blew a gasket about how much money I've spent trying to get Northern Bard off the planning board and into the money-making status that his mother taught him was the only measure of success, I've made a bet on myself that I can eventually make enough in book sales to pay off the gamble of self-publishing. Just in the past year, I've doubled my meager income from book sales from an average of $20 per year. He, of course, schooled by his mother that the only form of success that matters isn't the nickle-and-dime variety that I've been enjoying over the past 19 years, but "the big payday", is of her same opinion that I'm "wasting my time" on my writing. If I can't make enough in the next year to bring my credit card balance for the business down to zero and show a profit, I should "stop wasting time" and concentrate entirely on making money so that we can leave a financial legacy for our children to be proud of when we die...
And please don't tell me to bring up the fact that there are millions upon millions who have "hobbies" upon which they spend tons of money, tons of time, and see not even a single thin dime in return, as with his fly tying fetish. (He does "side work" for people who can't afford the professional rates charged by many in the career he's chosen, so he's making enough to support his "hobby" while helping out the poor at the same time. In order to qualify my "hobby" in his mind, I need to stop spending more money than I earn on my "hobby" in order to make it worth the time I spend at it.)
In short, my daily life at the moment is trying to balance my "struggling artist syndrome" with my "need to make the money to pay the bills syndrome", and long conversations with friends and relations about those whom I admire, but who died before they became well known, give me a constant cause to keep rethinking my chosen career. Even as I sit here this morning, writing this blog and aching in every muscle from the physical aspects of the job I'm currently holding to help pay off those bills while the characters from the current work in progress are trying to gain my attention and tell me that THIER story should matter more to me that getting the groceries and doing the laundry and catching up on yesterdays dishes, I find myself torn between the real world and the "hobby" that keeps me awake at night, seeing scenes that I should have written out during my busy day. I keep telling myself that there is a "happy medium", where I can balance out the fiscal need for money with the mental need to get these stories out of that tiny little dark space where they live and breed when I'm not watching.....
But then a little voice, sounding very much like my deceased mother-in-law, speaks up from the darkest of the dark recesses, where I firmly believe that there is a well like the one in the horror movie "The Ring" that houses all of those who have been hyper-critical of me all my life.
"How are you ever going to make money at writing when you couldn't even get a single person to show up at your first and only book signing two years ago?"
Have you ever wanted to shout out loud, regardless of any strange looks you get at the time, "Shut up, you!" in an attempt to get one of those inner voices to go away for a while?
*le sigh*
So, here is the link I promised above to assist you, should you wish to investigate some of those "struggling artists of the past" who have influenced the world around us, but not while they still lived. I'd dearly love to hear from some of you as to your opinions on whether we should concentrate on only financial success or if we should, in the interest of possibly being the voice in the desert for some artist of the future, continue to produce the works that we are driven by some inner demon to "waste time" on. I'd also love some links to some of your works, particularly if my words here have encouraged you to purge your own inner demons whether you're making money at the venture or not....
http://mentalfloss.com/article/28010/10-cultural-giants-who-died-coinless
Blessed be, my constant readers, and may you find the place where you and your demons can live together in peace and harmony.
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