Self Directed Effort (for my 350th post)

Seth talks about Self Directed effort today. For creatives is there really any other kind? We write, draw, paint, sing, etc. whenever we can. It's not easy to find the time and we don't have the benefit of a boss or coach demanding that we practice our craft. We have to force ourselves to do it. Of course, many times we are more demanding on ourselves. We force ourselves to pursue our craft despite life's pressures.
Sometimes, we try and hide what we are and we try to ignore the call to art. Steven Pressfield talks about this in The War of Art. When we live a life unfulfilled, we turn to alcohol, couch potatoism or a million other distractions to make us feel better about ignoring our true nature.
Bottom line - listen to your internal taskmaster who is telling you to create. Don't lose your family in the process and keep a balance between your art, whatever it is that pays the bills, your family and your health.
All four are important!
Don't let your art suffer for the other three!
(By the same token, don't lose your health or your family while chasing the dollar.)

Getting your art out there

I had an interesting conversation with a friend a few days ago about getting out "out there". We discussed how difficult it is to pick a medium and how difficult it is to bring all the pieces together. My own thinking was, at the time, a bit defeatist. I had the following fallacies in my thinking:

• My first fallacy was that to get a novel out there you have to attract a New york publisher (my friend corrected me by reminding me of small press and self publishing)
• My second fallacy was that Self publishing has too much of a stigma to overcome because people are accustomed to low quality self published work (my friend responded that you have to overcome this stigma by first producing a high quality work and then by working to tell people that you have)
• My third fallacy was that you cannot produce a graphic work (comic or even motion graphics) you have to have an artist onboard (My friend points out that there are programs to help people with this and an even more extreme example is Southpark where the artwork is secondary to the storytelling. We could debate the quality of Southpark storytelling, but it resonated with an audience, clearly, and by that measure is very successful depite low-quality artwork)
• My fourth fallacy was that I needed to pick a single creative area and focus there so my attention was not divided (My friend reminded me that most all creative folk out there are working on a huge variety of art. Some hits and some misses, but they produce and that what counts. They only adopt a single minded focus after something hits and they have an audience, and most of the time, even then, they keep working in other areas (George Lucas could have made a career of Star Wars only, but he didn't).
• My fifth fallacy was that I could not write a screenplay because I don't have the training (my friend reminded me that I could write a story in any form and then hire someone to make it into a screenplay, or even better use an automated program to help me turn a story into a screenplay)

It was interesting, frightening and liberating to have my excuses systematically dismantled. I can now see there are always ways to get the art out there. That's a new realization for me and one upon which I intend to capitalize. 

Is Free Better?

Should we do this for free? Meaning should we write and produce all of our beloved stories, characters, properties for free?
On the one hand, if we love telling stories you might think..."sure"
On the other hand, we would like to be rewarded for all of the storytelling. Why? Because storytellers are who we are, not just what we do.
When we aren't being rewarded for being writers and artists, we don't stop writing or drawing or painting. We keep doing it. No matter how much we try for it not to be, our passion is a distraction.
How much better would it be if our passion was not a distraction but it was what we did for money, food, clothing, shelter, etc. Then the rest of our life is uncluttered so we get to be people too.
I have no problem with free samples, free chapters, free sneak previews, but just producing for free?
I'm not sure that's the way to go.