Lessons from being a professional creative.
Art is hard. Art is subjective. The ability to make a living as a creative professional is at an all time high. It is an awesome time to be alive.
To make money from your craft you have to subject it to the opinions of potential buyers. In order to do this you have to transition your art from being a personal endeavor that serves you, into this thing that can serve and solve problems for other people. This means you have to be actively focused on making your art “better”.
I have thrown my hat into many arenas. I performed stand up comedy multiple times a week for four plus years. I was in a band for years. I made short films in high school and I am now currently working as a free lance creative consultant and videographer. I never figured out how to “make it” doing the first three.
The creative process is much the same for a lot of people. You see someone doing something and it inspires you. You go out and try it yourself. You are excited to do something new. Then you try it and when the excitement wears off you start to become aware of how bad you are at the medium you are expressing yourself in. Generally when people stay in a creative medium for long enough this level of self awareness humbles them and they start getting better over time. It is an exciting thing to watch. There however are some people who never improve and they are wildly unaware or so it seems. These people are always blaming the audience for jokes not working, clients for hiring someone else, venues for not booking them.
There are two potential truths when your art is not working. You either have not found your people or what you are making is not good, yet. Art does not have to be subjectively good. If you derive joy from what you are making then keep going at it. If you want to deliver it professionally it has to serve someone else. If your art is not doing that right now that is fine, but you can not just keep trying the same thing over and over. Adapt, improve and redeliver.
Self awareness is crucial for self improvement. Being self aware does not make you a better artist. What it does do, is it allows you to see the parts of yourself that you can work on and improve.
The creative process is best summarized by Ira Glass. Every time I explain it I think of this short clip. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbC4gqZGPSY&t=12s
