Sterling Terrell

recovering economist

How To Be An Artist

How To Be An Artist

I found this epic post by Jerry Saltz: How To Be An Artist.

Saltz lists and expands on 33 rules that will get you there.

If you want a creative life, do not miss reading this entire post.

Here are the bullet points:

  • Don’t Be Embarrassed
  • “Tell your own story and you will be interesting.” — Louise Bourgeois
  • Feel Free to Imitate
  • Art Is Not About Understanding. Or Mastery.
  • Work, Work, Work
  • Start With a Pencil
  • Develop Forms of Practice
  • Now, Redefine Skill
  • “Embed thought in material.” — Roberta Smith
  • Find Your Own Voice
  • Listen to the Crazy Voices in Your Head
  • Know What You Hate
  • Scavenge
  • Compare Cats and Dogs
  • Understand That Art Is Not Just for Looking At
  • Learn the Difference Between Subject Matter and Content
  • See As Much As You Can
  • All Art Is Identity Art!
  • All Art Was Once Contemporary Art
  • Accept That You Will Likely Be Poor
  • Define Success
  • It Takes Only a Few People to Make a Career
  • Learn to Write
  • Artists Must Be Vampires
  • Learn to Deal With Rejection
  • Make an Enemy of Envy
  • Having a Family Is Fine
  • What You Don’t Like Is As Important As What You Do Like
  • Art Is a Form of Knowing Yourself
  • “Artists do not own the meaning of their work.” — Roberta Smith
  • All Art Is Subjective
  • You Must Prize Vulnerability
  • Be Delusional

Now go make art!

Do You Need A Writing Outline?

Do You Need A Writing Outline?

So is a writing outline always needed?

I would think that a structured outline would be imperative for writing non-fiction – especially book-length non-fiction.

And then with creative writing, you could be a little more free to wander around without a plan.

Shapiro disagrees.

The reference below to Doctorow’s fog is quoted by Anne Lamott in Bird By Bird.

And what do I know?

Dani Shapiro has written 10 marvelous books.

And I write in the internet for three people.

Except that when it comes to creative writing—by which I mean the kind of work that the artist Anne Truitt describes as “the strict discipline of forcing oneself to work steadfastly along the nerve of one’s own most intimate sensitivity”—outlines are not necessarily helpful. We need Doctorow’s fog. If we know too much about where we’re going, the work will suffer along the way. It will convulse and die before our eyes. We’ll end up dragging along a corpse until finally, exhausted, we just give up.

-Dani Shapiro, Still Writing

Sterling Terrell