Hugh Macleod- Gaping Void
Hugh MaCleod is a cartoonist. He draws cartoons on the back of business cards and blogs about them (there’s more to it than that). “OK”, I hear you say, “what’s that got to do with writing?” Hugh has a book out in the US titled Ignore Everybody, about creativity. I haven’t read it yet BUT I’ve read some of the excerpts. I’ve noted down some of his ideas about becoming “commercial” in creative fields and I agree with him.
* Selling out is harder than it looks. Diluting your product to make it more commercial will just make people like it less.
* If your plan depends on you suddenly being “discovered” by some big shot, your plan will probably fail. Nobody suddenly discovers anything. Things are made slowly and in pain.
* Don’t try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether. There’s no point trying to do the same thing as 250,000 other young hopefuls, waiting for a miracle. All existing business models are wrong. Find a new one.
* The idea doesn’t have to be big. It just has to be yours. The sovereignty you have over your work will inspire far more people than the actual content ever will.
I know some people are going to say that creative writing is about art, not dollars and I agree up to a point. And that point is the decimal that floats around my bank balance. I’d much prefer to have it on the hard right of the statement instead of the midway mark. For a lot of writers, writing will never be about money. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Look at people from Mark Twain to Stephen King. They made money from their writing. The trick? Two actually.
- Their good writing is recognisable as theirs. They’ve stayed true to the way they write, not someone else’s idea of how to write.
- They weren’t afraid to look for the dollar. It’s not a sin to be creative and earn money from it.
Their dedication to writing and making a living from it enabled them to spend more time on writing. It’s a positive cycle, rather than a vicious one
I’m not saying we should just give up our day jobs to make millions from writing. What I am saying is that it is possible to make writing your full time passion and employment and that if you dream of doing so then stop putting obstacles in your path. Make it happen. Yep, that requires a game-plan. More on the game-plan later.
Please note: if you follow the above link to Hugh’s website then please be aware that he does swear. Just sayin’.
