Dave Matthes's Blog - Posts Tagged "art"
Conformity, Writing, and a Wooden Baseball Bat to the Skull
This is more or less a response to the innumerable armies of sheltered minds questioning my motives as a writer...questions that may or may not need answering simply because I'm tired of explaining myself ceaselessly in as few words as "I don't give a fat fuckin' fuck about getting paid for my writing".
I've written little ditties and short stories most of my life since taking a little summer camp course at my elementary school between Kindergarten and First Grade. Granted, they were terrible and repetitive and as directionless as a snowflake. But eventually after seeing how changeless my stories had become, I decided to devote my pending "talent" to being as different and original as possible, whether it be through dialog, story, themes, or even as simple as prose. To this day I do my best to continue that tradition.
That being said...being self-published as I am, does not promise a paycheck or even a surplus of earnings. Every copy of one of my books I sell, I acquire two maybe three to four dollars, which isn't much. I've done some research on this, and have been told by many, that in order to really make it big in the author-world, or to "get rich" so to speak, is to conform to a system of standards in which the very System itself controls. In other words, you sell yourself into becoming a "Genre Writer", to solely appeal to a particular brand of audience. Take this further and perhaps more dramatically, you cease to be a writer and your work no longer becomes your own. I refuse to end up like this.
Being self-published, I am able to write what I want, and KEEP what I want. I don't have to worry about impressing anyone, or selling my intelligence, etc. I write for myself in my way without the fear of having the change ANYTHING based on a contract. The first names that come to mind: Stephen King, Chuck P, as popular as they are, only write to a certain audience, generally. From what I've read, most of their work is a steady reworking of one book to another...they recycle. This is NOT writing. This is "conforming", and an embarrassment to the world of invention. They are NOT artists and their type of person will remain a warning sign to me on my shit-stricken road of life. I'm not even going to elaborate on the drenched, toilet paper pages "writers" like Stephanie Meyer and E. L. James have shat out. Real artists and favorists of intelligent creativity already know what I'm talking about.
Being a writer, to me, is all about the individual. It has nothing to do with the audience. Whoever happens to come across my work and "get it" or understand it, good on them. But that has never been and never will (unless I go senile one day, which with my family genes is very, very likely) be my intention. This all may sound like a rant, but you can usually tell the level of intelligence a person harbors by the amount of conformity they allow themselves to be plagued by. For instance, society seems partial to roboticizing everyone who's willing or not, and all those who refuse said "standards" are immediately cast as strange or delinquent. Now, that's not to say that because fucking a cow is frowned upon by the general population that I'm going to rebel and get up off my fat black ass and go snog the nearest cow. But there is a certain level that we owe ourselves as "civilized folk" to fall into. With writing, this I cannot do at all. Conformity is the line that divides being an artist and simply wandering about as an advocate of the writing "profession".
To write is to have a voice, and we all have one. Painters, Arborists, sculptors, lyricists...they all have a voice. But the more we subjugate our talents and abilities to the throws of money and contracts and standards and rules and boundaries simply for the money, the less we exist as true artists. I write not for fame or recognition or for a paycheck, but to immortalize the endless bullshit that seems to inflict itself upon my life with the single hope being that IF someone reads it, they will at least gather something immaterial and substantial enough to remember for their own selves.
I've written little ditties and short stories most of my life since taking a little summer camp course at my elementary school between Kindergarten and First Grade. Granted, they were terrible and repetitive and as directionless as a snowflake. But eventually after seeing how changeless my stories had become, I decided to devote my pending "talent" to being as different and original as possible, whether it be through dialog, story, themes, or even as simple as prose. To this day I do my best to continue that tradition.
That being said...being self-published as I am, does not promise a paycheck or even a surplus of earnings. Every copy of one of my books I sell, I acquire two maybe three to four dollars, which isn't much. I've done some research on this, and have been told by many, that in order to really make it big in the author-world, or to "get rich" so to speak, is to conform to a system of standards in which the very System itself controls. In other words, you sell yourself into becoming a "Genre Writer", to solely appeal to a particular brand of audience. Take this further and perhaps more dramatically, you cease to be a writer and your work no longer becomes your own. I refuse to end up like this.
Being self-published, I am able to write what I want, and KEEP what I want. I don't have to worry about impressing anyone, or selling my intelligence, etc. I write for myself in my way without the fear of having the change ANYTHING based on a contract. The first names that come to mind: Stephen King, Chuck P, as popular as they are, only write to a certain audience, generally. From what I've read, most of their work is a steady reworking of one book to another...they recycle. This is NOT writing. This is "conforming", and an embarrassment to the world of invention. They are NOT artists and their type of person will remain a warning sign to me on my shit-stricken road of life. I'm not even going to elaborate on the drenched, toilet paper pages "writers" like Stephanie Meyer and E. L. James have shat out. Real artists and favorists of intelligent creativity already know what I'm talking about.
Being a writer, to me, is all about the individual. It has nothing to do with the audience. Whoever happens to come across my work and "get it" or understand it, good on them. But that has never been and never will (unless I go senile one day, which with my family genes is very, very likely) be my intention. This all may sound like a rant, but you can usually tell the level of intelligence a person harbors by the amount of conformity they allow themselves to be plagued by. For instance, society seems partial to roboticizing everyone who's willing or not, and all those who refuse said "standards" are immediately cast as strange or delinquent. Now, that's not to say that because fucking a cow is frowned upon by the general population that I'm going to rebel and get up off my fat black ass and go snog the nearest cow. But there is a certain level that we owe ourselves as "civilized folk" to fall into. With writing, this I cannot do at all. Conformity is the line that divides being an artist and simply wandering about as an advocate of the writing "profession".
To write is to have a voice, and we all have one. Painters, Arborists, sculptors, lyricists...they all have a voice. But the more we subjugate our talents and abilities to the throws of money and contracts and standards and rules and boundaries simply for the money, the less we exist as true artists. I write not for fame or recognition or for a paycheck, but to immortalize the endless bullshit that seems to inflict itself upon my life with the single hope being that IF someone reads it, they will at least gather something immaterial and substantial enough to remember for their own selves.
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