"This is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy." -- Winston Churchill, HarrowSchool, 29 October 1941.That is exactly what all of us need to hear on occasion. The publishing industry is shaky, writing is hard, the market is flooded with mediocre to just plain bad literature, and as such it feels like our work (which we hopefully consider to be at least competent part of the time) will never get published, never be put before an adoring audience, never amount to anything.
Well. Realism is good for keeping inflated egos and dreams from getting out of control. But it can tend towards the creation of cynics rather than rational thinkers. Hope and dreams must be held in equal measure with realism. Perhaps we never will get published. But if we give up and don't try, that will be a definite fact rather than a possibility.
Lucy Alibar didn't give up, and she was in far more desperate straits than many of us writers find ourselves in. She was the classic New York hopeful, living on a shoe string (and in fact this shoe string had recently broken so it was tied together by the frayed edges, and it was also a bit muddy after running through the streets in the rain) working two and three jobs at a time, trying desperately to break it big, maybe just break it at all. To get somewhere with her dream of writing that one, brilliant piece of work.
Well guess what. She did.
Lucy Alibar is a dream example of how hard work and dedication can pay off. As this article featured in Elle magazine states, Alibar was making large sacrifices just to do what she loves to do: "In order to support her writing, Alibar had been leaving her Lower East Side apartment at 5 A.M. for a job making sandwiches and salads (“I can’t remember the exact number, but it was a lot”), then returning to her apartment to write, then bartending, then home again to write, then waitressing."And finally, after her cell phone had been disconected due to lack of payment, her co-written screenplay went big. Big as in won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, won the Caméra d’Or prize for best first feature, won great reviews, and was endorsed by Oprah Winfrey (after being recommended to her by President Obama, apparently). Jeez.
Beasts of the Southern Wild was Alibar's first screenplay. But it made an incredible impression, and now she describes her life like "heaven. I don’t want to go on vacation. I don’t want to buy clothes. I don’t want to do anything. I just want to write."
I remember that feeling. Of wanting nothing more than to write and write and write, for hours on end, never surfacing unless food or sleep required it, and sometimes not even then. For many of us, life happens, and we lose that passion or we lose the ability to indulge it. But are we waking up at 5 am to make it happen? Are we working three crappy jobs, all the while working like no one else?
There's a saying, and it's original intention revolves around the idea of saving for retirement: Live like no one else so you can live like no one else. I think it has merit regarding the writing world as well. Right now Alibar is living like very few people-- she's doing the thing she adores to do, she's doing it well, and she's excelling at it, and living off of it. She lived like very few people in order to get there. So what are we complaining about, that the industry is bad and that it's hard. Yes, it's hard. So get out there are work!
I speak to myself just as much as anyone else. I could wake up way earlier to work on my book. I could work on my book every single day instead of just once a week, as it's come down to. I could make the time. I don't. I'd rather sleep that extra hour. But should I? Could I?
Something to think on. Perhaps I'll go fiddle with my alarm clock...
Yes, this is something we all need to hear. OTOH, it reminds me of one of the apparent realities of our time (well, maybe it's not so true in the world of writing): that worldly success goes not necessarily to the best, but to the *most ambitious*, the most "hungry" for it. And what's worse, we keep conflating the two, artistic and commercial success, all while things that seem to us like artistic failures make millions of dollars. Now, we could *all* move to New York and do exactly what Lucy Alibar did (and let's fact, it, she worked those jobs because she felt she needed to be in New York, which is surely a commercial consideration more than an artistic one), but would that increase the success available in the writing/music/whatever world? Would that improve anyone's odds? I don't think so.
ReplyDeleteGiven the talent that's out there and the work people have put in, I don't think it's wrong to complain that *on the whole* (i.e., not necessarily speaking for my own case) it's not sufficiently rewarded. If you want to make people work hard, you have to make it worth their while to do so--and our culture is currently set up *not* to do that. People wouldn't complain so much about an industry that's *hard* if it weren't so *bad*. Unfortunately, we live in a mass-media society where there's simply not that much need for all of everybody's "content". But what else are you going to do?
You should at least do enough to get what's in your head out onto paper/tape/disk/canvas/granite/whatever. The central question, I suspect, is really "How far should you go in order to be at peace with yourself as an artist?"
As far as it takes.
DeleteJeff - Considering your stance on her living in New York being a commercial rather than artistic consideration, that's unfortunately one of the sad realities at least for writing. I couldn't even count the number of times I've been told I'd have to move to New York in order to be an editor or work in the publishing industry, because there's only one publishing house in all of Georgia while the rest are located centrally in New York, at least in the majority. It's kind of like Nashville or Athens in terms of some styles of music.
DeleteWell, that's weighed in to my decisions for the future. I'd rather live in Atlanta doing something else while still writing than live in a city I hate working in a publishing house of high repute. But that's my sacrifice and my decision-- everyone will have their own to make.
I think the main message to be taken away here is that you can't have either an entitled or defeatist attitude about the arts. You can't expect success to fall in your lap because you're good (or not, depending), but you can't be a cynic and think it'll never happen because a/b/c. You just have to give it your all and keep giving it your all. As long as it's worth it to you, put in the effort, as far as it takes, as jsmitchell says.
BTW, I'm thinking this may be part of the reason sports are so important to so many people; it's one place where you *know* that excellence and effort will be commensurately rewarded--a place where the best people really will rise to the top, where ambition, excellence, and reward are truly in accord in a way very few things in life are.
ReplyDeleteThis is a good thought-- interesting.
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