It’s possible to have a career without really thinking about it. Nothing wrong with that. I’ve had at least three-and-a-half accidental careers so far.
I started doing computer support and database design right out of college, just a few hours a week, at my dad’s friend’s company, learning as I went. Ten years later I was the Senior Database Administrator for the San Francisco Symphony, and I still do freelance db work to this day as my main source of income. But none of my friends ever remember this, because it’s so boring that I never talk about it.
My record label business partner wanted to start a weekly happy hour at an art gallery. I thought it was a terrible idea. The ayahuasca-snorting gentleman he initially partnered with to throw the event got a little squirrelly and they parted ways. I reluctantly stepped in, and under our management we had a decade-plus run as one of the biggest dance music events in San Francisco, lines around the block, written up in international guide books, DJs from around the world eager to play to our crowd.
I had no interest in DJing. But we needed to promote our album. So I learned to DJ at my own party, trainwrecking mix after mix. Spesh put me through DJ bootcamp and I got a little better. Soon we were headlining the biggest dance clubs in San Francisco, voted among SF’s Top DJs in the Nitevibe poll, on the cover of The SF Weekly, and touring in Europe. But eventually I quit because I don’t like travelling, or listening to hundreds of promo tracks to find the few good ones.
I started a blog in 2009. I can’t remember why. Probably to practice writing, to express myself, to share my ideas. Eventually some of my health posts (about sleep and artificial light, about the paleo diet) got popular. The blog hit a million views. CNN interviewed me. A TV show The Doctors flew me to Hollywood to be a guest. I experimented with advertising. Then I wrote a post about how I regrew some of my hair by intensively massaging my head, and things went crazy. Views through the roof, readers begging me to make instructional videos, asking for personalized advice. Should I take up hair regrowth coaching? I thought about it. Maybe I could help Tim Ferriss regrow his hair, or Prince William. But I’m not patient enough to be a coach, and I didn’t want to be the hair guy. Or another paleo guy. So I made it clear to my readers that though while I would still write the occasional health post, the content of this blog was much broader (systems for living well, self-experimentation, the creative life).
I like the psychological concept of grit, which corresponds roughly with perseverance, and even more closely with conscientiousness (one of the “Big Five” personality traits). Popularized most recently by Angela Duckworth in her book Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, the concept has been around at least since the early 1900’s. Grit, unlike natural genius, can to some extent be learned, and its application is more important than intelligence in terms of life success and fulfillment.
My own mental hurdle with this concept is that the word grit literally makes me think of someone gritting their teeth and just pushing, pushing, pushing, like Conan on the Wheel of Pain.
Obviously Conan is just going in a circle, getting nowhere (though he is getting stronger and bigger). That can be the problem with brute force persistence too — you might get mentally tough but at the same time not make any progress.
For that reason I substitute the word persistment (persistence + improvement) for grit. It’s not as catchy, but it works to remind me that there are two parts to self-propelled success. Willful stubbornness will get you only so far. You have to actively get better.
A few weeks ago I wrote about my take on what it takes to create on a day-to-day basis (inspiration, daily practice, quality control, a learning system). What I didn’t really address was the mindset of the creative life. Where does the motivation come from? What should you do if you don’t “naturally” feel motivated to spring out of bed and spend hours wrestling with your medium to create something that may or may not end up good, meaningful, and/or profitable?
What is persistment (or grit, if you prefer) in terms of developing an artistic/creative career, or just living that kind of life?
Know (and Feel) Your Why
I’m talking about purpose. We get to choose if we want to dedicate our lives to something, and what that something is. For me it’s mostly about creating works that entertain others (and hopefully also inspire, fascinate, etc.). Life happens whether or not we assign or ascribe purpose to it, but I appreciate the additional agency that choosing a purpose provides. If you don’t reflect on and define your own raison d’etre, it’s too easy to get swept up in other people’s agendas, becoming a pawn in games of people craftier and more powerful than yourself.
Purpose doesn’t need to be complicated or grand. But it needs to be yours. The only requirement is that whatever you choose has a deep personal, emotional resonance. What do you care about, more than anything?
Know Where You’re Going (a Main Goal and a Plan)
For many years all I wanted was to be a successful dance music producer. That goal sustained me for my early adult life. I had a great run, publishing music on my favorite labels, co-running my own label, landing big licensing deals, co-promoting a famous San Francisco event, touring internationally as a DJ, and even quitting my technology work for a few years and paying my mortgage with only music income.
While I still love running Loöq and making music in the studio, that career has mostly run its course (probably). I no longer want to DJ, spend lots of time in airports, or participate in big dance music events, and those things are kind of required for next-level success as a producer. I won’t say I’m too old, because there are people older than me still loving it, still working the CDJs and pumping their fists in the air. But I was ready to try to something else. There’s no rule that says you can only do one thing your entire life.
I floundered, somewhat directionless, for a few years. That was a little rough. I continued to support myself and act like a responsible adult, but I didn’t have any big picture or vision for my career or creative drive.
Now I have my sights set on being a novelist. While there are many acceptable definitions of “novelist,” for me it means getting published with a reputable publisher, selling thousands of books, and making some income (though not necessarily quitting my freelance work).
I can’t promise you I’ll get there, but it’s where I’m aiming. It feels great to be headed in a specific direction, no longer floundering. I’ve committed.
(And if you’re a novelist trying to make it a dance music producer, we should get in touch and trade tips.)
Deconstruct Blockedness/Poor Performance
I enjoyed this lecture by Alan Watkins:
Watkins makes some interesting distinctions between sensation, emotion, and feelings. What he’s getting at is that we can’t just look at behavior and try to force ourselves to do better. We need to go deeper, and deconstruct what’s happening at a physiological level, then work our way back up the chain.
Same goes for “writer’s block.” If you feel blocked, deconstruct your blockedness. If you’re mildly depressed, fix your brain. If you don’t know what to write, then back up, brainstorm, outline, write what you’re going to write. If you don’t know how to write what you want to write, then do some research, study some examples, get some advice, take a class, etc. Same applies, in slightly different ways, to other creative fields.
Incremental Goals and Rewards
A friend of mine does something nice for herself every time she gets something published. I think that’s a great habit. Why not reinforce success?
But getting published isn’t within our control, and it doesn’t necessarily happen frequently. It’s important to also reward yourself for incremental progress, for setting and achieving a target. That could be meeting your daily quota, finishing a draft, or submitting a piece for publication.
Even if these actions don’t result in immediate external success (getting published, getting paid, getting famous, receiving awards, etc.) you should still count them as personal successes, and reward the behavior. Because you need to keep doing those behaviors to have any chance at external success.
We all know rejection is part of the game. But that doesn’t mean you have to let it get to you. Ideally rejection should have a neutral emotional quality. Rejection is feedback, information. It can tell you any of the following:
that your work needs to improve
how your work can improve
that your work doesn’t fit the market you submitted it to
they don’t yet know who you are (reputation and connections matter)
I track my rejections, both for logistical purposes (so I don’t submit the same piece to the same outlet), but also as a measure of how much work I’ve put in.
For whatever reason, rejections no longer sting as much. Sometimes, they have a silver lining (when your work makes it out of the slush pile and the editor actually reads it, when you get personalized feedback or a nice comment).
I don’t know if I can explain exactly how to not take rejection personally. It helps having my first published story. It helps having clear successes in other areas of my life. Maybe most importantly, it helps to remember that rejection is about the work, and your progress, not you as a person.
What’s your take on grit, as it applies to the creative life? How do you nurture your own motivation?
Popped a champagne cork tonight after seeing that my short story “The Beef” had gone live on Strange Horizons. It was accepted a couple months ago but I didn’t want to announce anything until I could actually give people a way to read it. Strange Horizons produced a podcast as well, and I really enjoyed Anaea Lay’s reading (and short interpretation afterwards).
You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order.
You must put the work on the market.
You must keep the work on the market until it is sold.
I currently have nine stories out for submission. I’ve been using Heinlein’s Rules, more or less, except that whenever a story is rejected, I reread it and change anything that jumps out as needing changing (and I don’t send anything out in the first place until after at least two revisions, sometimes many more). Strange Horizons read a better story than the first two magazines that rejected The Beef. I always try to send out a finished, polished story in the first place, but if I reread it and notice something can be improved, I’ll try to improve it. Technically this is a violation of Heinlein’s Rule#3, but according to this io9 article, even Heinlein sometimes revised his work.
I like to think that Heinlein simply meant that you shouldn’t obsessively rewrite and revise when your story isn’t broken in the first place. But maybe he meant it literally — just send out the first draft. Big difference: when Heinlein was submitting short stories, it was a seller’s market. Editors might look for a gem in the rough. Editors today expect to read a polished story, and if that’s not what you send them they have a 1000 more in the slush pile to try.
I hope you read and enjoy The Beef. Please leave a comment at strangehorizons.com if you have some thoughts. And thank you for the many words of encouragement I’ve received from readers, in terms of taking up a new artistic endeavor and keeping at it.
Writers: This post is about music self-publishing, but also I get into the implications for writing self-publishing towards the end of the article.
I recently put together my Discography page, which gave me an opportunity to reflect on my music career to date. I’ve released original music on almost every kind of label, including a major (SONY/BMG), a barely-organized collective (Trip ‘n Spin Recordings), small imprints (SOG, NuRepublic, Kubist, Spundae, Dorigen, POD, Mechanism), my own label (Loöq Records), “big independents” in dance music culture (Global Underground, Armada, Bedrock, Renaissance), and distribution/A&R deals (3 Beat, Silent Records).
My most active period of writing and releasing music was in my late twenties/early thirties. Creating dance music (house, techno, breaks) was my singular, obsessive focus. That period was also the heyday of Qoöl, the weekly event I threw with DJ Spesh at 111 Minna for over a decade (hugely popular, with a packed dance floor and lines around the block), so I also had a deep sense of musical community, and also a great testing audience for new tracks.
At some point, around 2005, we (myself and my primary music collaborators, Spesh and Mark Musselman, the other halves of Jondi & Spesh, and Momu, respectively) stopped sending out demos to other labels, and started releasing music almost exclusively on Loöq Records. This wasn’t a conscious strategic career decision — it was just easier. I was co-running a respected, profitable label, so why not release my music on it? Benefits of self-publishing (or at least “own label” publishing) include:
I remember the moment I felt the most frustrated with my music career. It was well before my music career had actually begun. I had a middle-of-the-night radio show at a college station, a Macintosh Plus and D-70 keyboard in my dorm room, and big dreams. But none of my demos had gotten any love from music labels.
The moment: I was crossing the street, padded envelope in hand, preparing to drop yet another cassette demo in the mail to yet another label. I needed, and felt like I deserved, a cathartic release to the pent-up frustration I was feeling. Success must be right around the corner. This had to be the track that got me signed.
Well, it wasn’t. Nor was the next one. Or the one after that.
It’s a cliche that success is “right around the corner” from disappointment, rejection, paralyzing self-doubt, and abject failure. It’s not true, most of time. Usually what follows peak frustration is more frustration, hard work, more rejection, deliberate and painstaking improvement of skills, and eventually, possibly, small incremental successes. “Big breaks” which to an outsider seem to be based on phenomenal luck are more often the result of throwing enormous amounts of competently cooked pasta against the wall. Some of it will eventually stick.
I did eventually sign a couple tracks to a San Francisco disco label that was branching out into house and techno. Then I signed a track to a major label rave compilation.
Then more demos, more rejection.
It’s not like you reach a certain level of success and you no longer have to deal with being rejected (or worse, ignored). If you’re in the arts, it’s part of the territory. You can pretend you don’t care, but everyone cares. You might not care about the money or fame, but everyone wants to be acknowledged.
To get to my big break (John Digweed discovering a self-published Jondi & Spesh vinyl release in a Berkeley record store bin) I had to write a bunch more tracks, find a music partner/co-writer, put out half a dozen releases on our own credit-card funded imprint, be completely ignored by local tastemakers and scenesters for years, and generally fuel my efforts with youthful bravado, stubbornness, and plastic.
What followed was a pretty damn good couple decades, the dividends of which I am still enjoying today. Top-charting dance tracks, major TV and videogame licensing deals, US and European DJ tours (fancy hotels, limo rides, big venues and crowds), and co-hosting an epic dance music event that had a line stretching around the block every week. Though music is no longer my #1 focus, I still enthusiastically produce tracks and co-manage Loöq Records.
So what is my #1 creative focus? Writing. Fiction writing, specifically. And in that area, I’m enjoying/enduring a good run of frustration and rejection. I’m older now and I have a few life accomplishments under my belt, so the rejection doesn’t hurt as much. But it still stings! I’m currently writing and submitting science-fiction short stories to pro markets and my rejection notices just entered the double digits. Ha, that’s nothing! (think veteran writers). I don’t know if I’m at peak frustration yet. I’m not naive enough to assume that success is right around the corner.
Starting a new creative career over age 40 might be called quixotic. Less generously, deluded. More optimistically (and how I choose to frame it): an attempt at reinvention, mid-life learning, and hopefully, eventually, meaningful contribution (entertaining and inspiring readers).
I guess I’m writing this to encourage you, if you’re in a similar space. This post from Ferrett Steinmetz gave me the courage and fortitude to make a serious attempt at writing (and more recently to start submitting my work). Incidentally, the author of that post is having a great run. You can purchase his debut novel here.
