How Art Feels Like Prostitution

On Sunday, my friend Joseph Clay, a very talented writer and filmmaker, mentioned that art is hard because it feels so selfish.  As if you're spending all your time focused on you.

You start asking yourself questions.  Why am I doing this?  Why should people care?  Why is making this important?  Why do I even need to?  Who is this for if not for me?  What is this?  Why does it matter?

I'm going to be upfront here and say I don't have answers to these.

I'm suffering from a little bit of Want Everything Now Syndrome.  I would like to say that most days it feels like I'm being proactive.  I'm meeting with writer friends.  Talking to people about agents.  Getting the scoop on the 'biz'.  I've sort of put it into overdrive lately and that maybe explains why I feel a little frantic.  Because I've sped up the pace of my life.

I don't get this agent business.  Finding someone to like me.  To believe in me and champion me to other people.  It feels forced.  It feels like a blind date.

I get writing. The symphony structure of drama.  The jazz nature of comedy.

I get sitting down and just doing it.  Because that's how it goes.  I sit down every day and write something.  Depending on the amount of time I have, I usually produce at least a scene, a poem, an interchange, a structure.

Truthfully, if there's Writer's Block, I've never seen it.  In my opinion, Writer's Block occurs when people don't have enough projects on their plate.  I can't wait to finish something and move on to the next thing.  Either I'm very blessed or too obsessed.  Let's say a combination of both.

(I feel sorry for anyone who has been around me this summer.  I've talked about nothing but the scripts I'm writing.  I've dominated conversations with my own concerns and obsessions.  I can't talk normally to people anymore. I've become a weirdo.)

But once you produce something, any kind of art, there's the last step.  The worst step.  Where you show it. Where you step up to people and say, "Please experience this."  You hand them a script.  You invite them to a gallery.  You sit them down and pop in the dvd or pull it up on your computer.  You hand them the object as a gift.

And people think it means "Love me."  But mostly it means, "Understand me."

This is where I'm at.  Saying to everyone, "Hey, I'm a writer.  I write.  A lot. Here's some stuff. Check it out if you're bored.  I promise I won't think about why you didn't finish reading it and didn't get back to me and tell me your thoughts and whether I matter or should just give up and live in the Appalachians and eat apple mash and goatmeat until I die of some old timey disease."

I know why so many people give up on art.  It's taxing to put yourself out there.  Maybe most artists want to 'make it' because it doesn't bring money and fame as much as it brings an end to explaining yourself.  An end to justification.  An end to looking across at someone and saying, "I don't know why I do it either. I just can't stop."