It Was Nice Enough For Shakespeare!

One of the core conflicts for creative artists of all kinds is the tug-of-war between art and commerce. Frankly, an creator necessarily to do money, and it is desirable to do it from his craft.

A writer who must activity a full-time job to keep himself wish struggle to find the time to work, and often eventually gives it up altogether. On the different hand, being able to write on any project at all can polish valuable skills, and teach one the rules of the business industry.

On the different hand, I’ve met writers who were clearly working on projects, or busy away at a career, that was burning out their souls. I remember meeting one such writer. His business card see “freelance hack and literary mechanic.” Sadly, but not entirely unexpectedly, he was dead of alcoholism inside a year.

How to avoid such burnout? Well, in my own career, in addition writing the books I cared just about the most, I’ve written Attender comic books, a Star Trek novel, and a Star Wars tie-in. In my television career, in addition to writing for “Outer Limits” and “The Twilight Zone,” I as well wrote four episodes of “Baywatch”(!)

And ne'er for a moment did I feel that I was commerce myself out. Let’s get thing straight: Playwright wrote for money. One can keep a careful eye on the bank account, and still reach the heights of craft. But again, how?

In my own case, the answer is fairly simple. Envision the thought process like this: I draw two circles. In the first, is everything I would-be like to write (and there are always dozens of projects in the mental hopper!). In the second is everything being else is willing to pay me for. Wherever the two circles overlap, I write. In different words, are there projects I’d love to write, but can’t get paid for? You bet, and I generally don’t write them unless they are quite short. And there are projects that producers or publishers power want me to do, but don’t touch my heart at all. Having knowing through experience that there are limits to my creative flexibility, I turn those down.

But from time to time, an possibility arises that is in the no-man’s-land between the circles. There is money, but the project isn’t exactly thing you have ever considered writing. What then?

Then, you ask yourself if the project is thing that you could be proud of. If you would-be see it, or respect being who did. For instance, once my agent called and aforementioned that the producers of “Baywatch” wanted to talk to me, I had the office send over six hours of video on the show. I sat on the living room couch and watched them with my daughter, who was just about six at the time. After a few episodes, I asked her what she thought. She likeable it. I asked why. She said: “Because it’s just about good folk working hard to do the beach safe for us.” I thought just about it, and then replied, “you know? There are worse things than that in this world, by a long shot.” And definite to try writing for it.

Every show, every project has its limitations. You must use certain characters, must get them into certain kinds of situations, and must avoid certain topics. That can be restrictive, but you can as well decide to take it as a challenge. After all, you could give Fred Dancer a stage of any kind, and props of any kind, and he would-be find a way to create dance. Should you be committed to a lesser level of skill and vision? No.

You must find route to amuse yourself patch writing, to stretch your skills by trying thing you’ve ne'er done before, by empathizing with a younger audience if necessary—never ever writing “down” to your audience. That is the death of art. But if you can be truly flexible, you’ll find that much doors are open to you, much opportunities arise, that brass ring comes about much often. A writer available to leap at any possibility to show his skill, and who finds it easy to fall in love with just about a project wish often out-perform a brittle “genius” who must have everything exactly his way in order to write.

And if that approach is good enough for the Bard, it’s good enough for me.

About The Author

NY Times bestselling writer Steven Barnes has lectured on ability from UCLA to the Smithsonian Institute, and publicised over three million words on the way. For a FREE daily writing tip go to: http://www.lifewriting.biz, or http://www.lifewrite.com.

This article was denote on Gregorian calendar month 08, 2005