#ArtistTherapy: Measuring "Success"

"I don't feel like I've accomplished anything..." Yes, it's that time of the year. End of year review, year in review, summation of goals, whatever you'd like to call it and you start to consider what have you actually done. Especially in terms of your art. Let's call it what it is: pity party time.

Every year I write a list of goals/aims for the next year. This is for me to be accountable and also seems a way to punish myself. I am a checklist person. Someone who needs to be able to scratch things off and then see what's next to tackle. The idea of taking items off a To Do list is nice. Makes me feel productive. But also when looking at the year-round results I see I didn't do as much as I aimed and also took on a bunch more than I'd envisioned.

And there in lies the rub. Events, activities, volunteer work, new ideas, heartbreak, and so on can sneak up on you and derail your goals completely. Yet, you're still accountable for what did and did not happen. And when it comes to your art did you pursue it as heavily as you swore you would on the last days of the year as the clock steadily ticked down to a new year, new month, an anticipated new life? Maybe not.

If the answer veers toward the negative do you consider yourself successful?

The measurements of success are so varied for so many people. I consider success doing what I said I was going to do and being satisfied with the final product. I also consider success getting something I believe in published at a place that understood my goal. I consider success someone enjoying a cookie I developed. I consider success finishing something, anything. I consider success being respected by my peers for what I do know and being open to additional knowledge. See? The scope is wide.

What I am taking away from 2014 are the things that have brought me a better understanding of myself and my work. I am glad for being a part of We Need Diverse Books, for starting a podcast to continue the lack of diversity in publishing/art conversation, I am hopeful that my latest draft of my collection will be done before 2015 is officially here. I am glad for the small wins and consistency of life in being employed. Still being passionate about my work. Having a continuous slew of ideas hit me. Of having my work celebrated with acceptance for a future publication or winning an award that allowed me free attendance to a conference that gave me renewed faith in my work. I am glad for the success of panels and cookie competitions I participated in and for being able to work on my writing even if I didn't make as much time as I had (continually) promised myself. I consider 2014 successful in some areas and not so much in others but that's what the culmination of days helps with. Making sure that you are building towards that bigger goal that overall feeling of success that may not be accomplished with crossing off a task in a day but more so the accumulation of knowledge and heart and passion for the work you are pursuing.

Maybe you want to make a Goal list for next year. Maybe you want to hold yourself accountable day to day. Maybe you want to engage in said pity party and sulk over the "lack" of success you had if there's no agent contract, no book deal, no show in the works. But consider that if you've made progress, that same forward movement we talked about earlier this year that was so easy to stay stagnant in that any steps could be considered a success because we're looking forward, not back.

#ArtistTherapy: Are You Legit?

"I don't feel like I can call myself an artist because..." Oh yeah. Been there. Still there in some ways. There's the difference between being an "author" and a "writer." There are the questions when you may introduce yourself as an artist and someone will invariably ask "So what have you published?" "Where have you shown?" "Where have you played?" "Where may I have read your work?" And then you mention an obscure magazine/location you get back a dead stare and realize this person was putting you on par with NYT best sellers and people who've played at MSG or shown at the Met.

When I came back to work after my first residency in WY I was bright-eyed and psyched up! I felt legitimized as a writer because I was away, in the boonies, treated like an artist, and given space and time to write while others made sure I was not bothered and wholly comfortable. It was and is an artist's dream. So, I come back to my full-time job and while speaking to a friend her boss came by her desk and I said "Hey!" still high off of the residency. My friend's boss greeted me and then I guess at some point I blurted out I had been away for a month on residency. "Oh so you write?" she asked.

"Yup."

"Have you been published in the New Yorker?"

Picture me deflated. In those four weeks I had been legitimized, one comment negated all of that. It is not a good feeling when a comment can do that to you. But the reality is, especially as an emerging artist, it can. Now imagine being a published author and having someone ask about your sales. I was in a Book Expo line and heard two people speaking. One guy was asking the woman about her published book and she mentioned that she sold several thousand copies. He was not impressed. He said "That's it?" And she was pretty darn cordial considering that response saying she thought she did pretty good.

But there you have it, the need to feel legit, validated by your publications, your resume, your connections, your sales, and so on. This will never end. The business side and those on the outside will continually not get that, for artists, the product and the act of producing are the things that drive us and keep us going. Yes, we want to be published and shown and have others see and absorb and ultimately (hopefully) get our work. But that getting into a literary journal you respect and has a circulation of 500 or 1000 may be just as exciting as being published in Tin House or The Paris Review. That being shown in your local library can be an honor as much as showing at MoMA. Or playing at a bar where the crowd really digs your music and you can interact with them can be as satisfying as a larger venue.

The feeling of being an impostor as an artist because you may not have sold a lot or published widely or produced much due to whatever reason can be as debilitating as anything else in terms of moving forward. If you love what you do, if it's calling you nonstop, if you're growing and learning from it and people do get what you do you need to find the support (not the deterrents) to keep going. As I and guests have said on the Minorities in Publishing podcast: Find your tribe, they will support you. You have to legitimize yourself by continuing to create and then the rest of it will come through as well.

#ArtistTherapy: Cheating on One Work with Another

"I haven't been working on that project for awhile. I fell in love with another idea."  If you've seen the someecards image of someone saying that a woman (or a writer's) mind is like having a couple thousand tabs on a website browser open then that'd be a good description of not just myself but other artists as well.

Some writers can only work on one thing at a time, especially a large project. Others initiate work on several ideas that may hit them out of the blue. I've had friends and/or overheard other artists say how they were plugging away on one thing to get struck, as if by lightning, by something else and now that new idea is the shiny penny they want to focus their efforts on.

Unlike the "Falling out of Love" with your work post from a few months back, this is more about a balancing act. When jumping from one work to another requires a complete mental shift along with solving the puzzle of more than one work.

When I work on my Collection (my long-term gestating baby) I not only have to be in different POVs for each character but rely on the link of what keeps it together as a linked anthology. But then there's the young adult thriller I'm working on and the essays I'm drafting, not to mention restaurant reviews, blog posts, and flash fiction I'm revising. Each project requires me to shift gears sometimes drastically and it means that while I may be working on one project a fix may hit me for another. It means that while I am forcing myself to sit down and draft an essay where every word feels painful and dull I may be thinking about that work that feels more exciting to me at the time causing a lack of focus for what is in front of me. It's not unlike having a fantasy of a celebrity while on a blind date. You may not be totally uninterested in the person in front of you but you're certainly not completely focused at the moment.

Tackling multiple projects can be synonymous in this way. Each day brings a different mindset and progress may seem slower on one project than another simply because the enthusiasm and excitement has waned. Is it dead in the water? Not at all. It's really attributed elsewhere for the time being.

I haven't felt like I was "cheating" on my Collection in a long time, if ever. My mind is one that doesn't shutdown, even when it needs rest. I cannot focus on one story, which is why my longer projects, novels in particular, tend to have multiple POVs. I like the challenge of thinking outside the box and also of reshuffling my focus to be able to tackle more than one thing. It can create a seemingly never-ending list of writing. One that feels daunting rather than thrilling. But for whatever may or may not work there's always the understanding that the challenge of writing is what stimulates and keeps you going.

If you have one work you feel you're neglecting--and this could very well be because it's a pain in your a** at the moment--don't freak out. Don't feel that you're cheating on it with something more appealing, easier (or not), something that feels fresh and destined for print while the other project you may have lived with longer may be something that is losing its luster. I've felt the same way. There are days when I've wanted to forget my Collection and focus on the essay that feels like it'll be complete sooner or the flash fiction that is oh-so-close. At times my Collection is a monster and it's okay that I may need a break from it every once in awhile. The work will be there, it won't finish itself, but forcing myself to do it when I'm thinking myself distant from it doesn't always work. The space I've needed in real live relationships is one I've also needed with my work. "I simply cannot deal with you right now. I love you. See you later."

It's not a good-bye. It's simply a break.

#ArtistTherapy: There Are No Guarantees

"I worked so long and hard on this. Everyone I who saw/read it enjoyed it. I don't understand why [project] hasn't been picked up yet." Time has been invested. Money perhaps. There's been research, emotional ups and downs. Friendships gained and lost, maybe. Time not spent with others, but in solitude working, working, working. Revisions, imperfections resolved. New manifestations of what you originally thought your project would be. Point blank you've put a lot of work into whatever it is you're producing and at the end with hopefully more encouragement than criticism you're ready to put it out there. Maybe not yet for prime time but for consideration.

Maybe the work has earned you awards/grants, gotten you residencies and fellowships. Helped you get into graduate school. Won scholarships to go to events. Has been praised by others in the business and all those accolades seem like pieces to an inevitably positive conclusion.

So, you're ready to submit and show and hopefully get a response on what will make it all official. This work will be your debut. It'll be what allows you to cross the line from emerging to established. You're eager for the time to come when you can announce it's happening. But then an odd thing occurs. There are rejections, polite ones. Encouraging ones. But still, rejections. The praise is wearing thin, the well running dry. And confidence may begin to wane.

This isn't abnormal. I also won't say it's par for the course. With so many people creating how do you make yours stand out even after receiving what seems like cheering in your corner. This is when I tell you there are no guarantees. The exclusive graduate program, the grants, the encouragement is all great and positively necessary for some to maintain momentum but it's not a promise of what may come. This may entail more work, more revisions, more connections, more applications, more good tidings, more, more, more before the line is crossed.

The lack of guarantees can make even the most optimistic person veer towards the side of pessimism. But it can also be what keeps you motivated. It seemed, for me, whenever I was ready to give up on a piece, a larger project, step back, call it quits, say "not now!" a positive emerged. A publication in a small lit mag, a sudden acceptance when I thought after a year my submission had been lost in the ether of the interwebs, moving from waiting list to guaranteed for a residency, winning an award, being on a short list, getting scholarship after scholarship, requests from agents. All of it combined to make me push myself even more because there was the inkling that someone else, besides me and my friends/peers, saw something in my work that I felt only I had seen. And even if things didn't turn out on the positive of me getting that agent or winning that contest or fellowship and being able to step over that line to be a published author I knew that there was the probability that the more I continued and refined my work/skills that I was narrowing the likelihood of it definitely not happening.

So take every success for what it is, a success. And don't discount what may not amount to the golden ring at the time but how the work is being seen, understood, respected, admired, and that the more who see it the easier it may become to continue on because it's not simply you creating it's others seeing your vision and wanting it to succeed. It's not personal, it's rarely ever personal. But it is part of the larger picture that the only guarantee, is a decision made by you, as to whether or not you'll continue on.

#ArtistTherapy: Filling a Niche & Expectation

"I create [insert material/genre], but I'm expected to create this..." A few weeks ago, I sat down to catch up with a musician/composer friend I met at a writers conference a few years back. During our chat, both of us being female, African American artists, expectation of what we create arose. My friend is a tremendously talented singer & songwriter and she is writing songs that would fit more in the "folk" realm. But, sadly, being African American this is not what is "expected" of her. Just like I get stares when I tell people my favorite genre of music is "alternative" or "rock." The expectation is that I "should" presumably enjoy hip hop, rap or R&B primarily.

My writing doesn't always deal with race. Not every story, essay, article, or blog post will specifically and indefinitely refer to the "struggle" of people of color. But that isn't to say that my work will never reference it either. If racism, sexism, or any -ism is relevant to the larger story I want to tell, you bet your a** it will appear and hopefully enlighten and entertain.

There's been and will continue to be discussion on the race issue. And perhaps this is the post that finally brings this to light. I have friends struggling selling pieces because the race issue isn't pertinent enough or because it makes those of other races feel "guilty" or because it brings up a history that people already "know" about but can't truly comprehend in this digital age. There's a struggle to create what you want to create because there are gatekeepers with expectations that your work should be "more" this or "less" that and it may not at all fit in with your perception or overall vision for the work.

The stories I am working on about an interracial family do not all stem from racism. For some characters it is a very real aspect of their day to day having grown up before and during the Civil Rights movement. For other characters it's more about identity which may be attributed to race but is not the sole proponent. For some pieces its all about familial relationships, strained and suffering. For some it's about romantic ones. But in the end, for me, not every piece I write will be filled with characters that are stereotypically this or going through a constant "struggle" of being a particular race. I want to create people who are real, living beings and not seen as other but seen as like. And it is in this vain that it can be hard to stay true to your art when the niche to be filled is something that's been done and has proven profitable, something that is assumed, something that is not at all like what you planned your piece to be but the expectation of what a specific group of peoples life is like.

For my friend it's been hard for her to break out when she's not pop, she's folk, she's voice and guitar and minimal. Yet the expectation & what is popular is that she should be Rihanna or Nikki Minaj or whomever is the flavor of the month and will sell. These artists and what they create is not her. And she emphasized this to me. She is not overly aware of her Blackness, but believe me we are aware. And perhaps because of this day and age we do not have it in us to speak to that specificity at this particular time and want to speak more to the point of being someone who has been heartbroken, insecure, distracted, not where they thought they'd be, scared, in love, and so on. These universal ties that can bring us closer to others across the board would be more helpful than ever pigeonholing ourselves over expectations. People are tired of books about homosexuals coming out but what about ones about homosexuals living life? What about books of ethnic characters being superheroes? What about music by the likes of POD a Latino band playing Christian/Hard rock? What about not fitting into a niche and creating one that fits you?

It all comes back to the whole idea of persistence, and also the larger scope of there being a demand. But you have to create to fill a demand that isn't even there. So make what you love. Make what fits in with who you are. And forget what others are creating or what the expectation is. It's about being true to yourself and your art at the end of the day because you are the sole representative for it in whatever form it comes in.