Julie R. Neidlinger: Lone Prairie Art Works

You can read my experiences trying to learn to fly here.

Google pages.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

I'm having a lot of fun tweaking my free Google pages web site. You can see it here. I haven't got a clear idea of what I want to do there, but I have a sense of it being kind of like the "extra" file on my desk, the file where I throw in all kinds of random ideas that I may want to use later but that I definitely don't want to throw or mix in with the "serious" files. So, stuff I don't want on my main Lone Prairie site I could mix and mash over there.

I'm not sure.

Google has provided lots of easy to use templates, with an interface that is similar to all of the free services they now offer (Google docs, etc.) so, if you're using those, it should seem familiar to you whether or not you're up on web site creation or not.

Google has made it so you can also include Google gadgets, tweak the HTML to your own liking, and manage your page(s) easily from the dashboard.

If you're a writer or artist and need a quick web site just to refer people to, or perhaps just to get your feet wet on the internet, you might want to check it out. I could think of lots of ways this could be useful. It's much better than the early years of Geocities and those free sites.

Labels: art life, internet, writing life

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The Everything Group, for the right brained.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 3 comments link this post

I've got to stop joining reading and writing groups. I'm never satisfied.

Perhaps it's just a glorified wish of wanting to be part of a group of people who enjoy art, music, writing, reading and film. The common denominator in the reading group and the writing group which I have been dissatisfied with is...me. I can tell you all the things I didn't like about each group, but really, I can only change myself and I was the one who was part of both groups.

I'll use the writing group as an example, since I've long since abandoned the reading group.

For me, writing isn't about grammar, publishers, and novels. Writing is like art, like music, like reading -- it is an essential part of being for me; they are all in connection with each other. They are symbiotic, they feed each other and, if I try to separate one from the other, they all suffer. I need to be able to write to draw to write. It is not necessarily a career, but a way of existing. The writers' group seems only focused on writing as a career, with the goal of being published.

That, of course, makes sense. What else would a writers' group be for?

And that's why I know I just can't go anymore.

I used to enjoy talking with a former member (who no longer attends) about interesting books or things he'd found, because it gave me ideas of things to both read and write about. I feel his absence markedly. A huge frustration for me in both groups, the writing group in particular, has been a distinct feeling of square peg in round hole. I notice it more, now, with the absence of this member.

The last writers' group meeting found me without any writing sample to hand out though I dare say I write enough on all of my blogs to fill several books. Instead, I offered a handout with some web links and a few ideas that people might find helpful only to have it barely glanced at (except by one person) and essentially shrugged off. It may not have been a stellar source of information, but to have to put up with 15 minutes of discussion prior to that, about getting a person in to teach grammar as our special speaker, and not get any similar interest (feigned or otherwise) back from what I had to offer...

And then I handed out one of the cartoons I'd drawn for a comic book I'm attempting to put together. It may have seemed odd to hand out "drawings" at a writing group, but in my mind...it's all connected. It's writing, to me. The cartoons have scripts that I work through. I did preface it by saying my sense of humor was odd and they probably wouldn't get it. I wasn't too concerned about all of that, nor am I terribly thin-skinned about "critique." (You don't go through five years of art school without learning how to handle the critique of your work.) I was attempting to show the writing I was working on, even if it contained drawings.

"These cartoons are kind of like a seriously pared-down, edited story," I explained. "I only have about four to six panels to get the story across, and my dialog is obviously limited." I handed out the drawing.

It was quickly passed around the table and literally tossed carelessly back at me by a member. My reaction to that was of annoyance. I was annoyed at the disrespect showed to another person's work, not that they weren't fawning about the cartoon (frankly, they're weird humor that few people will laugh at) but apparently the annoyance was misconstrued at not being able to handle critique.

"I can handle a critique just fine," I said, carefully putting the original drawing back in the folder case, further annoyed that it was suggested I couldn't take critique even though I'd been part of this group longer than all but one other person there. "This is an original drawing and I don't appreciate you throwing it about the table."

We moved on with the rest of the meeting, but at that moment I knew I was done with the group. I very much like the people, but I do not fit with them as an "official" group, a group with a purpose.

Frankly, I don't mind not fitting.

I want to be part of group that isn't so narrow. I want to be part of a group where, if someone writes something personal that makes them cry, it doesn't have to be awkwardly sandwiched between the discussion of getting a speaker to come and talk about grammar, and a critique on writing. I want to be able to talk about a book in broad terms without falling into pointless discussions on child daycare and side-tracked conversation more befitting a Ladies' Aid meeting. I want to be part of a group where we bring things we're doing -- reading, writing, drawing -- an Everything Group.

Come to my Everything Group, the imaginary poster might say, We encourage you to be and do. If you're doing it, creating it, we welcome it.

Do you like to write? Bring your writing! Have a book or film you are dying to talk about? Let's talk about it. Really into art? Great. Got a thing for music? Come on down. Want help with motivation for your art, writing, journaling, music, or reading? That's why we're here.

A Jack-of-all-Trades group. A Renaissance Man group. A Creative Thinker group. An Aimless Wanderer With Lots of Thoughts group. A Group Without A Traditional Means to an End group.

A group where it wasn't about grammar and systems and how-to, but encouragement and creativity and, essentially, right-brain focus. A group where people who write are encourage to let it pour out without ever feeling like they have to make it a career, where people who read can gush and recommend and talk about a book, where people who have found some great new music can tell the rest of the members, where people who have an artistic streak can let it out before they explode.

Something like that.

I don't know if I'd get anyone to show up.

We humans like orderly specifics, it seems, rather than such "vague without purpose" activity.

But it'd still be cool.

Labels: art life, writer's group, writing life

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For those who love to write.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

If you like to write, or are even brave enough to consider yourself a writer, then you're at the right place. There are lots of things for writers here at Lone Prairie. Here are a few links to pages and articles that you might find interesting.

Supplies:

Ideas:

Articles on writing, and the writing life
Writing activities and ideas from writer's group
Writing prompts
Lone Prairie Sometimer writing activities
Unblock your creativity (a free worksheet!)
Tools for writers: prompts, web sites, and more
Contests

Publishing:

Get help with your self-published book (cover, layout, etc.)
Forewarned is a good thing

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NOTE: This post will be updated continuously to reflect links, products, and information as it becomes available.

Labels: writing, writing life, writing prompts

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Pens and stationery.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 3 comments link this post

I was asked, in the comments section of an earlier post, what I might recommend for stationery and pens. Since this sounds like the beginnings of a serious letter writer, I decided to do a quick blog post and throw out a few links.

Pens
I do enjoy an old-fashioned ink-dip pen with a good nib. The key is, of course, the nib. If the nib is cheap or rough, it cuts into the paper and sprays ink. I'm less worried about the look of the barrel as long as the nib is good.

Fountain pens are the next best thing. They do save you the trouble of the constant dipping into the ink well. My first fountain pen was in high school, a cheap plastic pink and purple A&W SizzleStix. It had ink cartridges and wrote very nicely, considering the price. I had a handful of pens that were my grandfathers, the older kind with a rubber ink bladder inside that filled with ink using a suction-draw method. Most of these, however, had aged to a point where the ink bladder was cracked.

During college, I picked up a few other fountain-type pens that were around the same low-price range. I like the Pilot Varsity, though I found the tip created a little wider line than I cared for. However, the ink flow was smooth. This pen, once the ink is gone, is thrown away. It is not refillable. I graduated up to the Berol Fontaine pen, and preferred it to the Pilot Varsity. The Fontaine had an extremely smooth writing quality about it -- very nice. It seems, though, that Berol has stopped making them despite the pen being very popular. I might be wrong, but I stopped seeing them in stores. It came in a number of great colors. It, too, was a disposable fountain pen. I only have a few left and am loathe to use them up. The Pilot Varsity is readily available online and in most stores that carry pens. It is still a good pen.

My first "serious" pen was a Lamy, compliments of an exchange student from Germany. She had one, I fell in love with it, so she sent me one and included a refillable cartridge that worked on a similar suction action but used a hard, plastic tube instead. I often use Pelikan ink with this pen. Lamy pens are a little more expensive than the SizzleStix, but very affordable once you start seeing the price of serious fountain pens, which start to hit the hundreds of dollars mark. Pelikan also makes some very nice pens of various price ranges.

I also have a Parker fountain pen that I picked up at WalMart. It's a good pen, though I always feel like either the pen or tip is just slightly bulky and I don't get the fine control I want. This pen uses ink cartridges.

When I'm not using a fountain pen, the pen I use -- and I have a well-stocked supply of them on hand as I use them up, so I must be serious about this pen -- is the fairly cheap but fine-writing Pentel Needle Tip Energel Liquid Gel Rollerball Pen (.5 mm tip). Might seem boring...but I've tried a lot of different pens off the rack and this is the one I keep coming back to. No complaints whatsoever. Fine line, smooth writing, fast-dry ink. All around good. I often use it for sketching when I don't want to drag around a lot of art materials.

My only suggestion with fountain pens is to use them often, or the ink will dry and clog in the tips. If you have a simple ink-dip pen, the tip is easily removed and cleaned. More extensive tips are a bit more challenging. I find that it's best if I store my pens (which are of the cheaper variety and not the $100+ type) tip-down in a vertical pen holder. Then the ink is ready to go. This would be a bad idea, though, if you have a faulty pen which leaks or pools ink. Writing with a fountain pen is a bit different than a ballpoint pen. (It's much better.)

Where to find pens:

Find on Ebay
A Pen Lover's Paradise
Lamy pens (USA)
Fahrney's Pens
Bittner Fine Pens (for serious pen lovers with money to burn)
Pilot Pens
Colorado Pens
Gold Spot
Parker Pens and Pencils

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Ouch.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

Ease deadens.

Hear Ms. Seu as she talks about Hawthorne and how he had to quit his safety and security to be great:

I read about your job loss and was put in mind of mine, and how what seemed a frown of fortune turned to our advancement. In 1848 your services are made "redundant," as your English forebears might say. And then bang: 1850, The Scarlet Letter; 1851, The House of the Seven Gables; 1852, The Blithedale Romance. Not bad recompense for forced retirement.

Why do I bemoan my woeful job status?

I'm referring to the Salem Custom House, of course, where you once plied a dubious trade inspecting quantity and value of imported goods, and generally wasting away in the safety therein. I had a job like that. I will not judge as to whether Sandwich maker beats Surveyor—but it was safe! And I would fain have stayed were I not pushed.

I'm already there, pushed out, pretty much. Why do I try to crawl back in?

"They spent a good deal of time, also, asleep in their accustomed corners, with their chairs tilted back against the wall; awaking, however, once or twice in a forenoon, to bore one another with the several thousandth repetition of old sea-stories. . . . The discovery was soon made, I imagine, that the new Surveyor had no great harm in him. So, with lightsome hearts, and the happy consciousness of being usefully employed,—in their own behalf, at least, if not for our beloved country,—these good old gentlemen went through the various formalities of office."

Hawthorne knew it all too well, apparently. Dilbert. Office Space. Rodent on a wheel. Nothing new under the sun.

Of course, this is what we all think we want— reliable pay with minimum exertion. But you made a discovery: "An effect—which I believe to be observable, more or less, in every individual who has occupied the position—is that, while he leans on the mighty arm of the Republic, his own proper strength departs from him. He loses . . . the capability of self-support. . . . He forever afterwards looks wistfully about him in quest of support external to himself."

Ouch. And that is me.

So I amen to what follows: "The real human being . . . brought himself to the comfortable conclusion that everything was for the best: and, making an investment in ink, paper, and steel-pens, had opened his long-disused writing-desk, and was again a literary man. . . . Rusty through long idleness, some little space was requisite before my intellectual machinery could be brought to work upon the tale."

On the other hand, some people feed off of the stress of a job and trying to squeeze in writing. Who's to say? Perhaps it is a question of not which job, but why the job.

Something to think about.

Labels: writing life

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I would hate her if I didn't like her.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 1 comments link this post

Hate is probably the wrong word, it being very strong and virulent.

However, if Corrine were not my friend, my extreme envy of her writing success and marketing genius would have me spinning with something virulent. Whatever virulent thing spins.

New book out? Check.

Ready for NaNoWriMo? Check. And double check (for cleverness).

Blast her success.

Sigh.

Labels: nanowrimo, writing life

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The artist date.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 1 comments link this post

The concept of the "artist's date" sounded so lovely the first time I read about it in Julia Cameron's The Artists Way.

What is an artist's date? According to this web site¹, it's:

A commitment of time spent on yourself once a week.
Time spent solely on you -- no companions allowed.
A date with your inner-artist, or your inner-child.

Odd. Apparently my whole life has been one selfish artist's date.

I was first attracted to Julia Cameron's book because of her first name.

I'm not kidding.

Beyond that, her self-description (poet! playwright! novelist! filmmaker! composer!) attracted me because I've always wished I were a polymath, even in the loosest, most lazily modern sense of the word.

Alas, I'm merely a selfish artist, dating myself.²

I've got a fine collection of books like Cameron's, books to help me be more creative, a better artist, and a better writer. Prompts! Ideas! Suggestions! Organizational tips! Motivational lists! In the end, after reading so many of them, they seemed to be the artsy version of the "You Go Girl You Be A Diva Reward Yourself Clairol You're Worth It" line of thinking. Which bores me. Anyone can pander to selfishness and sell books. Do we really need to encourage people to spend more time on themselves? I mean, really?

I'm pretty good at naturally wanting to look out for Number One.

I'm sorry to say, but my "inner child" and "inner artist" are generally nasty little petty creatures prone to ruining my life. What's inner had better exist outer or I'll just end up...dating myself.

I pretty much just want to watch Murder, She Wrote, and call it a day. And come up with my own theories and systems for creating.

-----------------------------

¹ The photo featuring the clown with the balloons that is found illustrating the article on artist's dates is very wrong.
² In non-Seinfeldian ways.

Labels: art life, writing life

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When you don't like art anymore.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

"I realized that I don't like art anymore."

A friend and fellow art major from college wrote that in a recent letter.

The things she described in her letter I understood completely. It has a lot to do with what I was trying to express in a post called "Creative Tools."

The clincher was page five of her letter, where she listed all of the things "they" say artists are supposed to be doing if they are "real" artists:

Get my name out there. Teach as many classes as I can.
Please everyone with my magic ninja art skills.
Feel guilty for not having a "body of work" that is all in the same style and centralized idea.
Feel guilty for not making art when I have free time.
Have a studio even though I don't use it because all arteests have studios.

I know each of these five points -- and more -- intimately. They are five vise grips, squishing me not into the form of a better artist, but a creative person unable to create.

I tried to answer back without being trite but instead, writing what I've learned so far that might help. I said that real art, like real friends, should make you happy. That it had nothing to do with:

Any ideas about "cohesive" "bodies" of "work"; these are just so people can label and categorize you and your art for an art show program without taking up too much space. Cohesive bodies of work often end up being monotonous and leave feelings of déjà vu.
You reasons for not quitting [the art teaching job] are valid and have nothing to do with a lack of courage or even you as a person.
Your personal dignity and your ability as an artist have nothing to do with your job.
Your job is teaching art right now. You are not a "failed artist making a living as a teacher." Your job is as a teacher. You are not your job.
I decided that all lists of what artists are expected to do are crap. You are an artist, so whatever you do is what an artist does. Period.
You'll stop liking art if you think you don't meet the list (described above) or if you confuse your job for who you are.

I also spent the evening drawing, painting, and glueing together a little worksheet to send to her that she might enjoy, and might, along with making her smile, even help. I am offering it to all my creative readers who have ever struggled with these things, whether in your art or writing. I hope you enjoy it and that maybe it helps, in some way, spark your creativity again.

Free Download: Worksheet for creative people who are feeling down on themselves. (PDF)

Labels: art life, free stuff, writing life

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Writing in the sand.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

Philip Yancey has a column in the September 2007 issue of Christianity Today that packs a powerful quote:

I find it humbling that the only time we see Jesus writing, he is using the medium of sand so that the words would soon be blown away by wind.

The column, part of the regular "The Back Page" section of the magazine, is about God's Writing Life. Yancey mentions that the handful of scenes he found in the Bible portraying God as a writer provide a continued "progression toward grace." He also notes that three of the media -- stone tablets, a plaster wall, and sand in the temple courts -- did not survive to this day.

Instead, God's literature gets passed down generation by generation in transformed lives.

Yancey then points out that the burden of creating on paper is not much compared to the works of art God creates out of human beings in this manner.

The column is not yet available online, though I wish it were so that you could read it. He has much more to say than what I am pulling out in this short post, and what I am taking from it.

The concept of "writing in the sand" has caught my imagination.

Write it, and let it go. Stop trying to write something permanent. It is one thing to write and another to want to leave a permanent mark.

Labels: writing life

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Questions from a young reader: Artists and loneliness.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 3 comments link this post

::Since this question, though technically belonging to a series on the main Lone Prairie Blog, dealt with art, I thought it ought to go here.::

Artists and loneliness: A friend of mine, a poet, told me not long ago that there is a certain loneliness in being an artist. An artist sees things from a different perspective, and while they do their best to confront and display that through their lives and its outpourings, a large majority of the time, people just don't get it. One can be surrounded by like-minded people, yet still be outside. I wonder if this is truly the case, or if the artist merely attempts to shut everything out to let their thoughts and feelings surface. I am still trying to figure this one out, but I know that my friend, the poet, was right. I know, because I am there. I suspect you are there many times, as well.

I can only speak for myself and acknowledge that there are plenty of artists (writers, poets. etc.) out there who are gregarious and outgoing and appear to not be of the "lonely" variety. Whether they are, or not, I can't say. I can, again, only speak for myself and those like me.

I don't want to feed into any ridiculous artist stereotypes, since they usually involve, at their worst, things like berets and caftan gowns and bizarre hair and sallow skin. My own experience, however, has been similar to what you've described, what your poet friend has described.

There have to be observers.

There have to be people who don't enter the fray, the ones translating what's going on. No matter how we twist it and wish it were otherwise, observers must be on the outside. Certainly, we enter the fray every now and then (often times getting hurt or overwhelmed before pulling out), but the nature of observing is that of being outside and away.

This place, one of outside and away, is very lonely. People might appreciate your observations, saying they are true and helpful and real, and sometimes even think they understand what it means to be this kind of an observer if you do your job well enough. Unless they've been there, though, they do not know. The best artists' work are the ones people assign all kinds of familiarity and recognition to without realizing that they are mistaking an understanding of the observations for what it is like to be an observer.

I do have to shut some things, some people, out, but it cannot be permanent. There is a lot of noise in my head: too many ideas, maybe, or the screaming that tells me I'm a fake and a failure that makes functioning even just a little bit so very impossible. It's noisy and I have to shut off and shut out periodically to get it under control.

I can't permanently shut people out, even if in my past experience, letting them in hurts. I can't shut out the rest of life, the rest of the world. My thoughts, my creativity, the very thing that keeps me going, is dependent upon them. Being alone too long is not good. It starts to create a kind of weak and inbred creativity, quickly becoming apparent that I need to get back out there and either jump in the fray for a short while or at least set up another observation post.

Artists have to be able to be alone, but they can't buy the lie that they don't need anyone. You can't be an observer if you're not watching. You can't translate if you're not listening.

It's a synergy, and kind of an upsetting catch-22 in my case (and others, I suspect). I find that I always end up hurt by people (often not their fault), but that I create the best art and writing after just such a times. If I am away from people too long, not happy but not recently hurting inside, ideas dry up and I lack some kind of spark to make anything truly real and passionate. Being with people reminds me I care, and what I care about. Being alone for too long makes me devolve inwardly, and become shallow and selfish. This is reflected in what I create.

I read the theory¹ held by Kurt Vonnegut that artists and writers were like the canaries in a mine shaft when it came to society. The idea was that we could tell where a culture, where a people were headed, by looking at the creative output. I think it's a fairly accurate assessment, since as observers and translators, artists are reflecting back what they are seeing around them. The problem, however, is that the canary is stuck in a cage, and is far down a mine shaft. It's not an enviable place to be. The canary is the first to be overwhelmed, and to be hurt. And to die.

In the end, I understand that there are things to be observed and there are people to observe them. We can't be both, and I am not willing to trade my post.

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¹ Here's a blog post on a take on Vonnegut's idea, though it is not the one I originally read a few years ago. Warning: graphic war photo.

Labels: art life, writing life

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Failure to complete.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

I am often discourage at my inability to finish projects. I also know that this is very much the norm for creative people: far too many ideas -- some started and some not -- than we'll ever be able to bring to completion.

Creative people are never short for ideas, then, but they are also never short for things that block those ideas and keep them from completing projects or goals.

Too many ideas: The proliferation of ideas is something that can overwhelm me. Though I have moments of writer's block/artist's block, it isn't for lack of ideas. Generally, it comes from too many ideas and lists of "shoulds" that have built up and clogged the gears, so to speak. There's no room to work with them all, since shuffling them around to process one or two of them means I might forget or lose or misplace one.

I hate to forget an idea, whether it is an art idea or a concept or theory I want to explore more in my writing. But I have to get them out of my head or I will grind to a stop and be unable to do anything. I can't press on. I have to deal with this overload or I will soon find myself focusing on my failure to institute the ideas instead of enjoying that I had them to spin around in my head in the first place.

Fear: Fear of failure, fear of success. Both paralyze me. Fear that I'm operating in some kind of void or vacuum and that no one is even on the same wavelength or interested in my silly little idea. Fear of rejection. Fear that I don't have the necessary skill, that I lack the chops to pull off an idea that was mine. Fear of being laughed at. Fear of being too well-liked and having to deal with compliments and people who glom on.

Time: Time management is key. I don't even think I have to expound on this, except to say that the concept of time management is a lie. It's not about managing time, but spending time. Time is money, and we spend it. Once spent, it's gone.

Help: I usually find myself fluctuating between needing help and not knowing where to find it, or not wanting help and needing to do something on my own and having people interfere with too many good intentions.

I don't have a solution for these, though I do have a few suggestions of things that I do that help a little bit as far as the first "problem", that of having too many ideas.

When I have too many ideas, I feel panicky inside. The ideas build up and I know I'm going to start forgetting the good ones. The absolute best outlet for this is a journal or sketchbook (whether you are a writer or visual artist). Until I've found a way to let the ideas out of my head, whether I end up doing anything with them or not, they sit and fester and eventually bring me to that standstill I described.

Let the ideas go. Get them on paper and forget about them. You can come back to them later, with fresh eyes, and see if they're worth the time or if maybe in need of a few changes. Regardless, you can free up space knowing that you wrote it down and can refer to it later. You can start thinking about new things and then write those down, too. There's something about that process of turning non-material thoughts into something dimensional and "outside of the moment" by writing it on paper and looking back on it five years down the road. It's an exercise in and of itself that ends up creating a fabulous work of art or writing.

It is so nice to be able to let ideas go. To forget about them, knowing they are in the safety of a journal.

Unless your house burns down. Or you lose the journal.

But that's a post for another day.

Labels: art life, journals, writing life

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Click and shift economy.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

I'll never get rich because I'm unwilling to take part in the "click and shift" economy.

That's what I call it when people make gobs of money off of things like click-through advertisements on their blogs and web sites, when they make money through things like referral services and the selling of mailing lists and -- through clicking and shifting.

I have an overworked sense of what is honest, and for me that means I do not make money off of non-work, non-production, or anything that seems gimmicky. I do not help flood the world with more advertisements. I need to know that the money I have earned is because I worked for it in a very tangible way, either through an actual product made and sold, or through a service for hire in which the end result was measurable.

No referral gimmicks.
No pyramids.
No strategies.
No schemes.
No ads.
No outside pressure.
No traitor-ized email lists.

And hence, no riches.

I want to make sure that if someone gives me money, they get something tangible in return. It's a kind of low-level, unprocessed and raw form of capitalism. Elemental, maybe, or infantile. No doubt laughable to those with an over-developed sense of business acumen who have, or are in, the process of acquiring wealth.

But I don't like "click and shift" for the same reason I hate office jobs that involve shuffling papers and marionetting to the pull of procedural strings: there is a real lack of producing something and adding to the world, with a real danger of doing little more than using up air and taking money for the privilege. It feels like I've accomplished nothing more than taking money from the sucker Barnum supposedly told us about, or a person trying too hard to make money without working.

I don't want money from a sucker. I don't want money from clicks or shuffles or referrals.

And hence, no riches.

Labels: art life, marketing, writing life

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Being a sellout.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

I highly recommend reading this Dave Eggers interview, particularly the part where he talks about being a sellout. I know I've felt a lot of unnecessary guilt over whether I was a "sellout" in some of my art just because I needed to earn money and therefore, painted what could be sold. That's probably a post for another story, because I think there are some valid points on both sides of that ("In this corner, we have Thomas Kincaide, and this corner...")

However, Eggers makes some important points about a kind of snobbishness that mistakes artists taking opprotutnities and making their own decisions as selling out, the myth that an artist/writer/musician must be barely seen/read/heard or barely understood in order for them to be "pure."

Here is the sellout part of the interview with Dave Eggers, and I couldn't have said it better myself (though I probably would swear less...):

You actually asked me the question: "Are you taking any steps to keep shit real?" I want you always to look back on this time as being a time when those words came out of your mouth.

Now, there was a time when such a question - albeit probably without the colloquial spin - would have originated from my own brain. Since I was thirteen, sitting in my orange-carpeted bedroom in ostensibly cutting-edge Lake Forest, Illinois, subscribing to the Village Voice and reading the earliest issues of Spin, I thought I had my ear to the railroad tracks of avant garde America. (Laurie Anderson, for example, had grown up only miles away!) I was always monitoring, with the most sensitive and well-calibrated apparatus, the degree of selloutitude exemplified by any given artist - musical, visual, theatrical, whatever. I was vigilant and merciless and knew it was my job to be so.

I bought R.E.M.'s first EP, Chronic Town, when it came out and thought I had found God. I loved Murmur, Reckoning, but then watched, with greater and greater dismay, as this obscure little band's audience grew, grew beyond obsessed people like myself, grew to encompass casual fans, people who had heard a song on the radio and picked up Green and listened for the hits. Old people liked them, and stupid people, and my moron neighbor who had sex with truck drivers. I wanted these phony R.E.M.-lovers dead.

But it was the band's fault, too. They played on Letterman. They switched record labels. Even their album covers seemed progressively more commercial. And when everyone I knew began liking them, I stopped. Had they changed, had their commitment to making art with integrity changed? I didn't care, because for me, any sort of popularity had an inverse relationship with what you term the keeping 'real' of 'shit.' When the Smiths became slightly popular they were sellouts. Bob Dylan appeared on MTV and of course was a sellout. Recently, just at dinner tonight, after a huge, sold-out reading by David Sedaris and Sarah Vowell (both sellouts), I was sitting next to an acquaintance, a very smart acquaintance married to the singer-songwriter of a very well-known band. I mentioned that I had seen the Flaming Lips the night before. She rolled her eyes. "Oh I really liked them on 90210," she sneered, assuming that this would put me and the band in our respective places.

However.

Was she aware that The Flaming Lips had composed an album requiring the simultaneous playing of four separate discs, on four separate CD players? Was she aware that the band had once, for a show at Lincoln Center, handed out to audience members something like 100 portable tape players, with 100 different tapes, and had them all played at the same time, creating a symphonic sort of effect, one which completely devastated everyone in attendance? I went on and on to her about the band's accomplishments, their experiments. Was she convinced that they were more than their one appearance with Jason Priestly? She was.

Now, at that concert the night before, Wayne Coyne, the lead singer, had himself addressed this issue, and to great effect. After playing much of their new album, the band paused and he spoke to the audience. I will paraphrase what he said:

"Hi. Well, some people get all bitter when some song of theirs gets popular, and they refuse to play it. But we're not like that. We're happy that people like this song. So here it goes."

Then they played the song. (You know the song.) "She Don't Use Jelly" is the song, and it is a silly song, and it was their most popular song. But to highlight their enthusiasm for playing the song, the band released, from the stage and from the balconies, about 200 balloons. (Some of the balloons, it should be noted, were released by two grown men in bunny suits.) Then while playing the song, Wayne sang with a puppet on his hand, who also sang into the microphone. It was fun. It was good.

But was it a sellout? Probably. By some standards, yes. Can a good band play their hit song? Should we hate them for this? Probably, probably. First 90210, now they go playing the song every stupid night. Everyone knows that 90210 is not cutting edge, and that a cutting edge alternarock band should not appear on such a show. That rule is clearly stated in the obligatory engrained computer-chip sellout manual that we were all given when we hit adolescence.

But this sellout manual serves only the lazy and small. Those who bestow sellouthood upon their former heroes are driven to do so by, first and foremost, the unshakable need to reduce. The average one of us - a taker-in of various and constant media, is absolutely overwhelmed - as he or she should be - with the sheer volume of artistic output in every conceivable medium given to the world every day - it is simply too much to begin to process or comprehend - and so we are forced to try to sort, to reduce. We designate, we label, we diminish, we create hierarchies and categories.

Through largely received wisdom, we rule out Tom Waits's new album because it's the same old same old, and we save $15. U2 has lost it, Radiohead is too popular. Country music is bad, Puff Daddy is bad, the last Wallace book was bad because that one reviewer said so. We decide that TV is bad unless it's the Sopranos. We liked Rick Moody and Jonathan Lethem and Jeffrey Eugenides until they allowed their books to become movies. And on and on. The point is that we do this and to a certain extent we must do this. We must create categories, and to an extent, hierarchies.

But you know what is easiest of all? When we dismiss.

Oh how gloriously comforting, to be able to write someone off. Thus, in the overcrowded pantheon of alternarock bands, at a certain juncture, it became necessary for a certain brand of person to write off The Flaming Lips, despite the fact that everyone knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that their music was superb and groundbreaking and real. We could write them off because they shared a few minutes with Jason Priestley and that terrifying Tori Spelling person. Or we could write them off because too many magazines have talked about them. Or because it looked like the bassist was wearing too much gel in his hair.

One less thing to think about. Now, how to kill off the rest of our heroes, to better make room for new ones?

We liked Guided by Voices until they let Ric Ocasek produce their latest album, and everyone knows Ocasek is a sellout, having written those mushy Cars songs in the late 80s, and then - gasp! - produced Weezer's album, and of course Weezer's no good, because that Sweater song was on the radio, right, and dorky teenage girls were singing it and we cannot have that and so Weezer is bad and Ocasek is bad and Guided by Voices are bad, even if Spike Jonze did direct that one Weezer video, and we like Spike Jonze, don't we?

Oh. No. We don't. We don't like him anymore because he's married to Sofia Coppola, and she is not cool. Not cool. So bad in Godfather 3, such nepotism. So let's check off Spike Jonze - leaving room in our brains for… who??

It's exhausting.

The only thing worse than this sort of activity is when people, students and teachers alike, run around college campuses calling each other racists and anti-Semites. It's born of boredom, lassitude. Too cowardly to address problems of substance where such problems actually are, we claw at those close to us. We point to our neighbor, in the khakis and sweater, and cry foul. It's ridiculous. We find enemies among our peers because we know them better, and their proximity and familiarity means we don't have to get off the couch to dismantle them.

And now, I am also a sellout. Here are my sins, many of which you may know about already:

First, I was a sellout because Might magazine took ads.

Then I was a sellout because our pages were color, and not stapled together at the Kinko's.

Then I was a sellout because I went to work for Esquire.

Now I'm a sellout because my book has sold many copies.

And because I have done many interviews.

And because I have let people take my picture.

And because my goddamn picture has been in just about every fucking magazine and newspaper printed in America.

And now, as far as McSweeney's is concerned, The Advocate interviewer wants to know if we're losing also our edge, if the magazine is selling out, hitting the mainstream, if we're still committed to publishing unknowns, and pieces killed by other magazines.nd the fact is, I don't give a fuck. When we did the last issue, this was my thought process: I saw a box. So I decided we'd do a box. We were given stories by some of our favorite writers - George Saunders, Rick Moody (who is uncool, uncool!), Haruki Murakami, Lydia Davis, others - and so we published them. Did I wonder if people would think we were selling out, that we were not fulfilling the mission they had assumed we had committed ourselves to?

No. I did not. Nor will I ever. We just don't care. We care about doing what we want to do creatively. We want to be interested in it. We want it to challenge us. We want it to be difficult. We want to reinvent the stupid thing every time. Would I ever think, before I did something, of how those with sellout monitors would respond to this or that move? I would not. The second I sense a thought like that trickling into my brain, I will put my head under the tires of a bus.

You want to know how big a sellout I am?

A few months ago I wrote an article for Time magazine and was paid $12,000 for it I am about to write something, 1,000 words, 3 pages or so, for something called Forbes ASAP, and for that I will be paid $6,000 For two years, until five months ago, I was on the payroll of ESPN magazine, as a consultant and sometime contributor. I was paid handsomely for doing very little. Same with my stint at Esquire. One year I spent there, with little to no duties. I wore khakis every day. Another Might editor and I, for almost a year, contributed to Details magazine, under pseudonyms, and were paid $2000 each for what never amounted to more than 10 minutes work - honestly never more than that. People from Hollywood want to make my book into a movie, and I am probably going to let them do so, and they will likely pay me a great deal of money for the privilege.

Do I care about this money? I do. Will I keep this money? Very little of it. [...]

Now, what if I were keeping all the money? What if I were buying property in St. Kitt's or blew it all on live-in prostitutes? What if, for example, I was, a few nights ago, sitting at a table in SoHo with a bunch of Hollywood slash celebrity acquaintances, one of whom I went to high school with, and one of whom was Puff Daddy? Would that make me a sellout? Would that mean I was a force of evil?

What if a few nights before that I was at the home of Julian Schnabel, at a party featuring Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro, and at which Schnabel said we should get together to talk about him possibly directing my movie? And what if I said sure, let's?

Would all that make me a sellout? Would I be uncool? Would it have been more cool to not go to this party, or to not have written that book, or done that interview, or to have refused millions from Hollywood?

The thing is, I really like saying yes. I like new things, projects, plans, getting people together and doing something, trying something, even when it's corny or stupid. I am not good at saying no. And I do not get along with people who say no. When you die, and it really could be this afternoon, under the same bus wheels I'll stick my head if need be, you will not be happy about having said no. You will be kicking your ass about all the no's you've said. No to that opportunity, or no to that trip to Nova Scotia or no to that night out, or no to that project or no to that person who wants to be naked with you but you worry about what your friends will say.

No is for wimps. No is for pussies. No is to live small and embittered, cherishing the opportunities you missed because they might have sent the wrong message.

There is a point in one's life when one cares about selling out and not selling out. One worries whether or not wearing a certain shirt means that they are behind the curve or ahead of it, or that having certain music in one's collection means that they are impressive, or unimpressive.

Thankfully, for some, this all passes. I am here to tell you that I have, a few years ago, found my way out of that thicket of comparison and relentless suspicion and judgment. And it is a nice feeling. Because, in the end, no one will ever give a shit who has kept shit 'real' except the two or three people, sitting in their apartments, bitter and self-devouring, who take it upon themselves to wonder about such things. The keeping real of shit matters to some people, but it does not matter to me. It's fashion, and I don't like fashion, because fashion does not matter.

What matters is that you do good work. What matters is that you produce things that are true and will stand. What matters is that the Flaming Lips's new album is ravishing and I've listened to it a thousand times already, sometimes for days on end, and it enriches me and makes me want to save people. What matters is that it will stand forever, long after any narrow-hearted curmudgeons have forgotten their appearance on goddamn 90210. What matters is not the perception, nor the fashion, not who's up and who's down, but what someone has done and if they meant it. What matters is that you want to see and make and do, on as grand a scale as you want, regardless of what the tiny voices of tiny people say. Do not be critics, you people, I beg you. I was a critic and I wish I could take it all back because it came from a smelly and ignorant place in me, and spoke with a voice that was all rage and envy. Do not dismiss a book until you have written one, and do not dismiss a movie until you have made one, and do not dismiss a person until you have met them. It is a fuckload of work to be open-minded and generous and understanding and forgiving and accepting, but Christ, that is what matters. What matters is saying yes.

I say yes, and Wayne Coyne says yes, and if that makes us the enemy, then good, good, good. We are evil people because we want to live and do things. We are on the wrong side because we should be home, calculating which move would be the least damaging to our downtown reputations. But I say yes because I am curious. I want to see things. I say yes when my high school friend tells me to come out because he's hanging with Puffy. A real story, that. I say yes when Hollywood says they'll give me enough money to publish a hundred different books, or send twenty kids through college. Saying no is so fucking boring.

And if anyone wants to hurt me for that, or dismiss me for that, for saying yes, I say Oh do it, do it you motherfuckers, finally, finally, finally.

So. There you go.

I think I may come back to the concept of selling out, but I'll let Eggers take the floor here, today.

Labels: art life, writing life

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The song of a procrastinator.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 1 comments link this post

About a year ago, I was asked to write an article for a magazine. I need to have it done before I fly to Germany next Wednesday and, uh, I'm frantically writing it now. A year ago. Doing it now. Do you see the problem?

Why is it that I can only work under the extremes of headache-inducing stomach-turning last-minute-stress? I can find a million ways to dawdle around until the last humanly possible moment to get what needs to be done, done.

I always get stuff done. I can't say I get it done well.

As it is, I'm writing and re-writing the article completely confidence-free. 50 percent of the problem is that the article is historical and my writing experience has always been creative/commentary in nature, or like a newspaper article from my reporter days. This is a whole new baby, with citations and sources and trying not to make it dry but not taking liberties...that's 50 percent of the problem. The other 60 percent is that I have no confidence in my abilities when I'm in the throes of whatever is required of me with a deadline looming - it happens to be writing, this time, and I feel like I'm writing it on the fly - because I think that there's absolutely no way I'm going to pull this off. And of course, 10 percent of that last part of the problem is a math issue.

I'm more for creativity.

I'm sure some of my regular readers remember the National Novel Writing Month fiasco I went through about a year ago. I'm sure I'll end up doing the same again this year, if I enter, forcing myself to write 15,000 truly awful words on the last day of the contest.

I could just scream.

Labels: writing, writing life

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The song of a procrastinator.