Tayari's Blog: M-O-N-E-Y!

Comment #1, by Allie

While I fully understand what you are saying....I can't help but wonder if you were a "scientist" instead of an "artist" would you feel the same?

Comment #2, by Allie

While I fully understand what you are saying....I can't help but wonder if you were a "scientist" instead of an "artist" would you feel the same?

Comment #3, by Lester Spence

my work would suffer tremendously if i had to make money doing something that wasn't related to it. i wanted to make money doing something i'd do for free.

where do we differ?

Comment #4, by Andrew Ervin

It's not like anyone gets into writing fiction for the money, do they?

Comment #5, by Ladylee

I think Lester said it all when he said... "...i wanted to make money doing something i'd do for free."

Don't we all? Now THAT right there is the ultimate dream that so few live.

But I think the problem is centered upon, like Tayari inferred, when one's vision becomes corrupted, i.e., sacrificing one's vision to pay the bills. Are you selling out when you do that or not? I guess that it is up to the individual, but it is almost safe to assume that "Art" goes from being "Art" that you love to "Art" that you dread, when you have to bend under someone else's rules... just to put food on the table and keep a roof over your head...

But at the same time, this chapter alone would produce discomfort, but taken in combination with the other chapters that we have read thus far (the ideas of synchronicity, ideas streaming from God/universe)... it does make sense that it is highly reasonable to have an EXPECTATION that it is very much possible to live off of one's work, one's "Art".

Interesting argument for either way of thinking about this or the other, really.

(Okay, I know, I know... I'm pontificating too much, LOL.)

Comment #6, by cheryl miner

Having never been paid for my writing I guess it is easy for me to stand on the side of artistic purity but I'm kind of feeling the point in the chapter. I like the perks my day job affords me (major vacations,private schools for the kids, frivolous spending) but the price I pay is too little time to write. Therefore, I know my writing has not knotched up to the next level because many times the day job has sapped the best of me. By the time I face my keyboard I am tapped out. I think an artist must practice her art in order to be good at it and it does not matter whether that art is writing singing dancing etc. A writer must practice just like a pianist to bring out her art, or bring up her art. I think it helps if , like Tayari, you work close to your art so in a way, even when you are not writing you are close to it. But many other writers have written on the need of being totally immersed in your art and forcing that art to sustain you. Octavia Butler wrote a piece on living on mostly white potatoes for nearly a year in order to stay committed/focused on being only a writer. Granted, I'm not there yet, but I understand the inclination to do such a thing. I've been working my day job for twenty years and I'm very good at something I hate. Sometimes I wish I had lived on less and just totally went for being only a writer no matter what that kind of committment involved.I think my husband would have supported me in that choice because he supports all of my efforts to write now.I believe that in my case, choosing a career, job whatever that those around me could understand was the path of least resistance...and I cheated myself and choked....and took it.

Comment #7, by Michael Fischer

Look, I'm not going to lie—I’m not reading the rest of this chapter, sorry!:) T, you once wrote that you had to finish books, no matter what. Finishing a bad book was like finishing your mother’s asparagus. You just had to do it. Well, I definitely like this book, but for this chapter, I’m spitting out the asparagus—all over the table.

Sometimes you just know when an author is wrong, and Cameron is wrong here. Well, for me at least. I’m gonna listen to my inner artist here. I write to create art. That's the "artist's way." Art is sensual and can’t be priced. What's more "luxurious" than sensuality? Nothing I could ever buy could replace the "luxurious" feeling I have when I'm in the throes of writing a story, even if it’s crap. It's the process.

But I won’t be too hard on Cameron. I was terribly blocked before starting her course, and now I’m writing every day. Work is just falling out of me lately, and you can’t put a price tag on THAT.

Comment #8, by TaRessa

Tayari,

I, too, have struggled with this dilemma in various guises throughout the decades. I grew up in a community of gifted and prolific jazz musicians, all of whom had "day jobs."

That's kind of how I approach my non-job-related writing-that is my novels, etc. I realize that I'm happiest and most productive when I keep the creative/personal writing in the realm of art, doing it for love, fun, the rush of creative expression.

I agree completely with Pearl: I like to get paid for my writing, but that's not why I do it. I've found it's best for me to keep the "day job" and let my writing live in a different zone with its own purpose.

Happy writing and prospering to all...

TaRessa

Comment #9, by m.

I totally agree with you Tayari! Art and money- are distant cousins. When they reunite its good but not always necessary. A friend of mine recently asked me is my writing and art productive. I paused and felt insecure for a moment- then I said YES; wholeheartedly might I add!
By the way you recommended this book to me years ago at a signing for "The Untelling," and both books are great in their own right. "The Artist Way," helped change my outlook on life and writing. I still write morning pages. I write, create art and enjoy the beauty of life more than ever.

P.S. I could not re-read the book at the end though. Thought that was a bit much...
m.