The Artist's Woo
A prayer for the discouraged, as written by Mr. Troy Ford of Q-Stack and Ford Knows Books.
Note: This is a guest essay from Mr. Troy Ford, and you can view the original post here. If you’d like to submit your own post, click here. If email is cut off, please read it on the app or website.
Last week I read a Substack post by a writer who announced they would no longer be sharing their writing publicly, The End. They have some significant credentials attached to their name, but were unhappy with the reception of their debut book. They mentioned frustrations like overlooked, inconsequential, and insignificant—also overly ambitious—but took pains to say they weren’t lashing out at anyone in particular except an indifferent world.
Considering some of the notable people and media outlets who spoke up for their book, it’s clear that even bona fides and celebrity support are not enough to push someone’s efforts above the fray, to distinguish them from the avalanche of writers publishing books and Substacks and articles and essays—we really are legion.
They also made reference to some personal pressures they had going on; there were some financial and other practical insecurities. Bottom line: based on their earnings, they were spending more time on writing than they could afford.
And that is often the crux of the issue right there, the place where so many writers can’t help but break down in the face of cold, hard dollar signs. While the pep-talkers of the writing world mesmerize us with the unquantifiable benefits of creative pursuits, the people in the business of publishing and selling books—agents and editors and publishers and booksellers—are frustratingly focused on that bottom line, the all-too-quantifiable difference between how much it costs to pay, publish and market a writer, and how much their book earns.
We are encouraged to let our voice and our spirit sing on the page, only to be told that while our hearts may beat pure and true in the creative act, the public isn’t automatically interested in the exercise of such courage, vulnerability and honesty. In fact, they seem to be annoyingly concerned with: What’s in it for me? What am I going to get out of it?
It may be a very brave thing for a writer to interrogate their feelings about a character, scenario or idea that intrigues them, enough to think What if? and then sit down with all that ambiguity and uncertainty to bang out their imaginings.
But the reading public—strangely, shockingly—rarely has the appetite to read something that doesn’t have as clear a payoff for them. Even other writers aren’t necessarily going to indulge our machinations if there aren’t some moments of refreshment, comfort, or excitement along the merry, marathon way.
This is not to say that you are in any way obligated to put out a tray of snacks and a pitcher of margaritas in your writing, nor that you won’t find readers who will enjoy your particular brand of minimalist or brutalist or baroque story and style. As we often console ourselves in life with the old adage, “We made the best decision we could at the time,” so it also stands that we always write the best story we can. And why wouldn’t we? After taking all those writing classes, reading all those books and articles on craft and plot, are we suddenly going to stop short and serve only our leftover, reheated stories, saving the good ones for ourselves? Of course not.
In The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron—who has made a cottage industry of selling the soar instead of the score—will tell you that your job is to write the thing, and let the universe have its reaction, a cosmic call-and-response which spotlights the real issue: our motivations for writing.
Why write at all, without the guarantee that a story will ever be read? Why keep writing if our first stories are not celebrated, if we can’t even give them away for free? Why—if there doesn’t seem to be a single person who cares besides our stupendously kind husband and that one enthusiastic friend who seems to think we are brilliant in the suspiciously same way that every day is a beautiful day—should we ever write another word without so much as a pinky promise that it will be the golden ticket to a book deal and a bestseller list?
There are no guarantees in life, or in publishing. Assurances that if you just keep at it long enough you will eventually get your big break (along the lines of The only certain way to fail is to quit) are not actually certain. No, not even if you are a genius—look at Emily Dickinson.
For the rest of us non-geniuses, even a mid-list career—where our books aren’t necessarily #1 bestsellers but we do make it onto a few lists and a fair number of bedside tables—isn’t a foregone conclusion. A new writer has very good reasons to believe they may never make a living from their writing. Maybe a decade ago, when self-publishing was new and the old saw, “Twenty books to $50K a year,” seemed inevitable, but now?
Still, there are just enough writers winning the publishing lottery and telling all about the different ways they did it to believe it could happen to you, and you would be right. It could.
It’s also possible that you will not get an agent, or that the agent won’t sell the book, or that the publisher is disappointed with your sales and refuses your second book, maybe your agent moves on to newer and sexier clients, and you end up back at square one. These things happen. Frequently. There is neither a mathematical nor a magical formula to success—this is art, and it is not a tidy affair.
Square One. Dear me. It must look even more bleak from the other side of success.
I was sitting with all of this after reading that writer’s public resignation, noticing among their insignificants and inconsequentials how they had received three times as many ratings on Goodreads as my first novel, Lamb. Also, I’ve been grappling with the stark reality that my new book, Waterspout, is lagging on pre-orders by comparison to my debut at this same time last year. Freshman novels are always, well, more fresh than sophomore efforts after all.
I really had to take a minute when I read that plaintive writer’s post to fend off their implicit message that without a wide readership—and the commensurate financial rewards—making art is not worth the time and effort. In fact, I was in need of a good old-fashioned, Julia Cameron-level pep talk.
Coincidentally, I had just finished my essay “The Queer Creation Manifesto” for the new anthology, Steps to Liberation: The Rainbow Flag, Human Rights and Freedom, and the second line of my piece?
“Art is not the answer to your prayers. Art is the prayer.”
On the brink of feeling bleak, a voice inside my head said,
“Do you really believe that art isn’t worth it unless you are someone else’s idea of a success? Did you not believe it when you wrote that ‘Art is the prayer’...? If fickle fate never grants you access to that yellow brick road, have you gained nothing from your effort to make something beautiful, poignant, or meaningful—not even for yourself? Is there no profit in making art, regardless of the reception it receives?”
And of course I had to say No! Almost anyone can agree that the artist gets something out of making art—but what if they are the only one? What if it’s not enriching other people—because they aren’t seeing it; because there’s a glut of AI-written content; because there are so many other things to read for free on the internet; or because platforms are burying content by shadow banning queer and other marginalized creators and throttling organic growth?
What if you feel as though you are shouting into the void?
“Come on now…” my inner voice went on. “Do you truly think if you are not selling lots of books or subscriptions that you are shouting into the void? Isn’t that what ‘they’ want you to believe? Isn’t that part of the problem—that ‘they’ tell you art is only worthwhile if you are making money from it? Isn’t it, instead, an act of resistance to keep making art even when it’s not lucrative?
While faceless economic entities seek to commodify people for profit, artists making art regardless of the outcome are resisting that devaluation, rejecting the endless lies that people are merely “resources” or “capital.” We are more than the amount of money we make, and the cut corporations can take for themselves.
If you, too, only value your art-making based on the amount of money the end product earns, you have done their work for them.”
So. Yes, money—yes, if we make enough at our writing or art, we could stop making our living doing something else we might not enjoy. This is not a frivolous hope.
But in an oversaturated market, in which the sheer volume of “product” has increased exponentially with little (or an ignorant) regard for the craft, quality or provenance of the effort put into it, aspiring writers must face the reality that their voices may be drowned out by the din. And they must seek a more fundamental reason to keep practicing their art anyway.
This is not the territory of formulas or tropes, of neat diagrams and story maps. Nor is it a path to success, fame, or wealth. The sum of our value is not calculated by a public casting dollars like votes—consumption is only one part of this process, and perhaps the least significant.
I am saying to you that the experience of making art is itself nourishment. Making art feeds you. It nurtures you. Making art embraces fear, uncertainty, and ambiguity, and in the endeavor, strengthens and empowers the maker.
Every question is a search for clarity. Every reflection is a moment of genuine curiosity and an attempt to answer it. You peer deeply into the unknown, grasp meaning from unmanifested potentials, and try to make them real and known.
You have seen it, even if no one else does. You are never shouting into the void; you are listening to the very real voice of the universe, and offering your response to it in communion.
Making art is a profound practice of meditation and manifesting, an exploration of ourselves and the cosmos. Far from being small and insignificant, we are important, momentous expressions of a living world. It is our purpose to illuminate both the material and the intangible aspects of our existence.
Making art is the real banquet in all of this. Let’s dig in.
Well said! Creativity for the utter joy of it is how creation and the universe work. Creativity with utilitarian or instrumental purpose is how modernity & capitalism persuade us that things are meant to work. Except that the latter hasn't worked out that well, eh? For planetary or human thriving. So yeah, the making is the prayer.