Artist = Entrepreneur, Part Three
If an artist is an entrepreneur (and she is), then she too must navigate the passage from externally-imposed structure to self-imposed structure.
She must move from imposed discipline to self-discipline; from external validation to self-validation; from external reinforcement to self-reinforcement.
In a way, she is like a nation that declares its independence. She has sued for the right to self-determination and she has won. Now what?
What is self-determination?
Ask yourself, of the new, free world you’re about to enter:
What time will I get up in the morning?
What will I eat for breakfast?
What thoughts will I permit myself to indulge in over breakfast?
Where do I go when I finish my meal?
What will I do once I get there?
What will I do when I encounter my own internal Resistance?
How do I answer the voice in my head that tells me I’m worthless, that my dreams are folly, that I’ve made a terrible mistake leaving that job at Ford?
How do I respond to true external adversity? Real-world competition? My own flawed business judgment? The bottom dropping out of the marketplace?
What happens when my rent doubles?
When my permits expire?
How do I placate my worried spouse, my anxious children? What do I tell them when I myself am more freaked out than they are?
How do I handle adversity?
How do I handle failure?
How do I keep going?
How do I keep from losing my mind?
The entrepreneurial mindset is not taught in high school and it’s not taught in college. They don’t school you in it at Harvard and they don’t teach it at the Iowa Writers Workshop.
Our education begins, unfortunately, the day we’re discharged from the army. Or when our career ends as an athlete. We enter this new world when we’re fired, or we quit, or the plant closes or the business moves to Mexico.
It’s scary.
It’s like one of those survivor shows on TV. They drop you out of a plane into the Amazon jungle. Good luck, sucker!
You’re on your own.
DO THE WORK
Steve shows you the predictable Resistance points that every writer hits in a work-in-progress and then shows you how to deal with each one of these sticking points. This book shows you how to keep going with your work.
THE AUTHENTIC SWING
A short book about the writing of a first novel: for Steve, The Legend of Bagger Vance. Having failed with three earlier attempts at novels, here's how Steve finally succeeded.
NOBODY WANTS TO READ YOUR SH*T
Steve shares his "lessons learned" from the trenches of the five different writing careers—advertising, screenwriting, fiction, nonfiction, and self-help. This is tradecraft. An MFA in Writing in 197 pages.
TURNING PRO
Amateurs have amateur habits. Pros have pro habits. When we turn pro, we give up the comfortable life but we find our power. Steve answers the question, "How do we overcome Resistance?"
