#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.

The #SupportWNDB Campaign! It's All the Rage These Days

Yes, yes, yes. I have been delinquent in posting. Almost a month! My apologies. One of the things that have kept me busy (beyond end-of-the-year deadlines) is the We Need Diverse Books Indiegogo campaign that started October 24th. As a team member and social media person I've been helping on that end and it's been go, go, go!

It's also been fantastic to witness the support online as well as in dollars and donations that people have been providing for their belief that We Need Diverse Books (WNDB)! Being part of the WNDB team has been so great. Everyone is very committed to the belief and pitches in. It's a family as much as it is a team and I am very honored to have been asked to be a part of it after SCBWI. (Thanks, Ilene!)

So what is #SupportWNDB? Where is the money for this campaign going? Well lots of initiatives but focusing on providing grants to emerging writers as well as established diverse writers (there are other diversity grants via SCBWI--which I won last year--and Lee & Low [New Visions & New Voices Awards] as well as the Speculative Literature Foundation) but We Need Diverse Books wants to add to that and not relegate the sole aspects of diversity to people of color.

There's also diversifying classrooms via partnerships with An Open Book Foundation, NEA, and First Book to bring diverse authors for school visits at disadvantaged schools; educational kits for librarians and educators on how to diversify literature offered and dispensed to young readers; in addition to funding the 2016 Diversity Festival we plan to have in Washington, DC! So many things and plans ahead to promote diversity and changing the course of thought for what is considering "mainstream."

As a writer of color this is something I believe in not only in terms of being an emerging diverse artist but being a reader who would've loved to see more diversity in what I read as a kid and clamor for it as an adult no matter what the genre. I very much believe and am happy to give my time and money in #SupportWNDB and I'd urge others to also.

So that's one reason I've been busy and if you'd like to find me I'm more than likely behind the @diversebooks account on Twitter. :o)

#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.

The Diversity Debate

There’s been a lot of discussion about the lack of diversity in art. In my world this pertains to books specifically. The discussion has risen and will not be curbing any time soon thanks to We Need Diverse Books^TM and also other entities focusing specifically on bringing more attention to diversity in books--meaning that there should and could be more non-majority main characters (not sidekicks) as well as more diverse writers. Last week Publishers Weekly revealed their 2014 salary survey for the publishing industry that included the option for those who participated to note their race. The results were staggering. Not only in the fact that many people approached did not respond but that of the several hundred who did the reflection of people of color was under 10% total, which seemed to set the online world on fire.

My friend Bev Rivero and I created the podcast Minorities in Publishing (MiP) because with our 20+ years in publishing we had always felt the lack of diversity in publishing. Working in it you cannot help but see it and it’s interesting to me that once the numbers were represented, be it a small portion of those approached in the industry, that more awareness came to light about why there may not be more diverse books being acquired, promoted, and sold. If there aren’t enough people of color (POC), LGBTQI, or disabled helping on the back end of bringing these books into a publishing house, developing a plan, and going on to find readers for this type of material (those without a true understanding of what it may be to be of the non-majority) how can we expect anyone to best stand by these books (and writers) to make work for a larger audience?

Being a team member of We Need Diverse Books^TM, co-creator of MiP, and also a female writer of color I have an investment not only for others in this industry and seeking to be a part of the industry but for myself as an emerging artist. Getting more minorities involved can be beneficial to those of us struggling to tell and sell our stories and if more diversity and representation matches the world we live in why can it not also be reflected this way in art? It’s a long and ongoing discussion with many sides and perspectives. The truth of the matter is there is a lack of diversity and for those who may not see it or may want to brush the lack of diversity off as being because there's not enough “good candidates” or “good material” is a very narrow way to look at it. The onus can’t be only on the person creating or applying. Affirmative action is not meant to get unqualified candidates a job and the request for equality is not intended to inhibit one group over another.

The diversity debate isn’t so much a debate but more a request for others who hadn’t noticed the disparity to take a moment and see what others do. How many books with POCs, LGBTQI, and/or disabled characters in a primary role are on bookshelves? How many are on best-seller lists? How many are reviewed in the outlets that still do review books? How many stories by and about minorities are publishing in literary magazines? How many are promoted outside of the one aspect of it being diverse and not so much attempted to find a broader fan base but focus on the issue of race, sexuality, and/or disability without looking at the person as able to carry a story for them being them?

The “debate” isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Because of so many advocates and allies and resources available there cannot be any further room for the discussion to be considered moot. It’s not simple to dismiss and it may not even be easy to rectify in the long run either. The addition of more diverse materials still need to be quality materials and applicants for publishing job should be qualified. Yet, there’s no doubt that on both sides this is available and perhaps needs the nurturing that it is not getting. “People want to see themselves in books” has been quoted many times over and will continue to be said. We want to see ourselves in what we read and watch, and we want to see ourselves as not “other” but as part of the norm.