I just reposted your last four spectacular paragraphs over to notes. I mean the whole thing is good, but it was like watching a fireworks display the way you light up the sky with multiple beautiful insights at the end. By the way, I agree about Twitter, now seeing the potential there, where there is much more room for the art of writing than I imagined.
I love this, especially the idea that you don't have to sacrifice your artistic integrity to make what matters to you, BUT the art your soul calls you to make and the art that you enjoy making and get paid for do not have to be the same.
I think straddling both worlds are necessary to survive if you want to be an artist and get paid doing what you love. You could always get paid random jobs so you can stay awake late at night, smoking cigarettes and drink cheap beer and write into the dawn, but that's not the time we live in. It's the time to embrace this duality. It's nothing new, as made clear by your piece, but it's the perfect time to be made aware of this duality. Growing up, I was always told to follow my dreams. When in reality, you should follow your dreams but get paid as well. A man's gotta eat. And then there's family as well..
I also struggle with the idea that both images should match. That's a lot of what my writing is about actually, the fact that I'm coming to terms with all sides of myself. So. I'm not sure. Is there the marketer persona that never meets the artistic persona? I don't know. Good questions though.
Thanks for sharing CA -- definitely helps to try and find that synergy vs. juggling too much.
I think the artist is about uncovering all the sides of themselves, while the marketer is about finding which side of themselves has the most commercial value / public appeal. Maybe it's important for those processes to run in parallel and not interrupt each other.
I don't know if the marketer can be "the full self" at the start (it's too complex). But there are so many examples of famous artists who start one-dimensional & then after they've gained popularity, they become much more expansive.
I resonate with your reference to the late-night writer. I know Hemingway and King and Murakami did that, and I'm sure thousands of others, and I feel like I'm doing that now. Maybe things are different today...
So great seeing where you took this piece Michael and bringing it home to your journey (and our's) as as a creator...love how you brought attention to Mucha's off-brand self, life, and methods! The tension is real and maybe that's productive. As always, you made me think about something new!
This was such a good piece. It mirrors a lot of my current tensions and musings over those tensions. You should submit this piece to Every. I feel like it is the perfect publication for an amazing essay like this.
Interesting -- do they have a place to submit essays like this? My understanding was that they only had publications (a string of content by a specific creator in a specific area).
Love it. A real question that doesn’t necessarily come with a clear cut answer, but rather a personal decision on how to conciliate artistic and commercial work.
I wonder if any commercial endeavor must necessarily come with some sort of public or visible disclaimer that it is commercial in nature...
1) Definitely a personal decision, and I hope this article changes the nature of the decision for some people. Typically it's, should I be A or B? I'm proposing that you can be both A & B, and now it's a matter of choice in how you balance the two.
2) Disclaimers are tricky. It seems like there's so much work disguised as art that's actually part of an intricate sales funnel. It's (traditionally) to the marketers benefit to not disclose that. But I think we're so inundated with it, that if you do make that explicit disclaimer in an honest and creative way, you can build trust.
I really love this, Michael. I think the tension for me has been in the authenticity trap.
That my real self is my writing self and the view that Twitter might require me to be a performative self and how long can I keep that up? It’s a scary thought.
But I also joined Small Bets this month and now I’m ready to get as clear as you are on Michael the marketer vs Michael the writer, so that I might figure out then develop the value add and lean all the way into it. And this will be the freedom that allows me to explore all these projects that exist in my head and in my journals. I’ve written and rewritten them for years and they matter, but they frankly might not ever translate into any recompense or recognition, just that I’ve exorcised them from my physical being and have the reward of now seeing them out in the world. And the ability to consistently do this will likely be commensurate with my level of self-satisfaction my own work/sense of purpose and meaning.
This is a heartening example. I love that you say not either or. Do both. Straddle. And cash in if you hit a lick--Art nouveau Pepsi and cigarettes so you can create the body of work you want/investigate your soul’s imaginings/follow serendipity in and on purpose.
Maybe the Twitter self doesn't have to be a created "performative" false self, but just a limited self. I see it as showing just a sliver of me. That sliver is true, real, part of me. It's not the full picture.
So for example, I have a logging practice, where I jot down all my ideas unfiltered. As I review them and put them onto Substack, I'll take anything that seems writing/craft related, and bring that to Twitter. It's just a filtered version of the whole.
So I have one platform that is complex, unfiltered, and comprehensive (my whole journey and all my interests). Then I have another platform, where I'm curating just a sliver of that journey (the sliver that is most practical). Most people might only know me for the practical stuff, but some will click through to Substack and make sense of the whole person.
I think a lot of writers can relate to this struggle. I appreciate the dichotomy you created here, and it makes a lot of sense. But still, I wonder how practicable it is.
One thing I'm thinking about is a video essay about Vin Diesel I watched the other day (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw4155-zgDQ). Basically he was a really competent actor when he started out, and pursued a lot of artistic roles. But eventually he got pigeonholed into the "tough action star" persona. And he never recovered. It looks like Mucha was able to do both the art and the popularity, but how many fail?
Also, I wonder how your perspective on this has changed in the past 9 months. I've personally stopped writing on Twitter, and it seems like you have slowed down a lot too. What does marketing look like for you right now?
I also resonate a lot with this essay by Henrik Karlsson (https://www.henrikkarlsson.xyz/p/search-query), in which he argues that you should write as nichely and therefore passionately as possible. And then to try to find your 1,000 true fans that way. That seems more sustainable to me (not necessarily from a financial perspective, but from a production perspective, dealing with writer's block and such).
I just reposted your last four spectacular paragraphs over to notes. I mean the whole thing is good, but it was like watching a fireworks display the way you light up the sky with multiple beautiful insights at the end. By the way, I agree about Twitter, now seeing the potential there, where there is much more room for the art of writing than I imagined.
Glad the Twitter part resonated, Rick! Awesome to see your A>Z thread take off.
Thank you Michael. Yes, getting some traction makes it fun.
I love this, especially the idea that you don't have to sacrifice your artistic integrity to make what matters to you, BUT the art your soul calls you to make and the art that you enjoy making and get paid for do not have to be the same.
Not only do they not have to be the same, it's probably better if they aren't.
They should be different, but still related enough where there's synergy between the two.
There's some old advice like "If you try to monetize X hobby, you'll end up hating it."
The truth is X has so many facets; and the risk of hating the thing only comes if you hyper-converge on one limited facet of it.
This is so damn good, Michael.
I think straddling both worlds are necessary to survive if you want to be an artist and get paid doing what you love. You could always get paid random jobs so you can stay awake late at night, smoking cigarettes and drink cheap beer and write into the dawn, but that's not the time we live in. It's the time to embrace this duality. It's nothing new, as made clear by your piece, but it's the perfect time to be made aware of this duality. Growing up, I was always told to follow my dreams. When in reality, you should follow your dreams but get paid as well. A man's gotta eat. And then there's family as well..
I also struggle with the idea that both images should match. That's a lot of what my writing is about actually, the fact that I'm coming to terms with all sides of myself. So. I'm not sure. Is there the marketer persona that never meets the artistic persona? I don't know. Good questions though.
Thanks for sharing CA -- definitely helps to try and find that synergy vs. juggling too much.
I think the artist is about uncovering all the sides of themselves, while the marketer is about finding which side of themselves has the most commercial value / public appeal. Maybe it's important for those processes to run in parallel and not interrupt each other.
I don't know if the marketer can be "the full self" at the start (it's too complex). But there are so many examples of famous artists who start one-dimensional & then after they've gained popularity, they become much more expansive.
I resonate with your reference to the late-night writer. I know Hemingway and King and Murakami did that, and I'm sure thousands of others, and I feel like I'm doing that now. Maybe things are different today...
So great seeing where you took this piece Michael and bringing it home to your journey (and our's) as as a creator...love how you brought attention to Mucha's off-brand self, life, and methods! The tension is real and maybe that's productive. As always, you made me think about something new!
Thank you for the early edits / feedback, Kirsten!
This was such a good piece. It mirrors a lot of my current tensions and musings over those tensions. You should submit this piece to Every. I feel like it is the perfect publication for an amazing essay like this.
Interesting -- do they have a place to submit essays like this? My understanding was that they only had publications (a string of content by a specific creator in a specific area).
Love it. A real question that doesn’t necessarily come with a clear cut answer, but rather a personal decision on how to conciliate artistic and commercial work.
I wonder if any commercial endeavor must necessarily come with some sort of public or visible disclaimer that it is commercial in nature...
1) Definitely a personal decision, and I hope this article changes the nature of the decision for some people. Typically it's, should I be A or B? I'm proposing that you can be both A & B, and now it's a matter of choice in how you balance the two.
2) Disclaimers are tricky. It seems like there's so much work disguised as art that's actually part of an intricate sales funnel. It's (traditionally) to the marketers benefit to not disclose that. But I think we're so inundated with it, that if you do make that explicit disclaimer in an honest and creative way, you can build trust.
Agree disclaimers are tricky. Authenticity is really a low time preference endeavor
I really love this, Michael. I think the tension for me has been in the authenticity trap.
That my real self is my writing self and the view that Twitter might require me to be a performative self and how long can I keep that up? It’s a scary thought.
But I also joined Small Bets this month and now I’m ready to get as clear as you are on Michael the marketer vs Michael the writer, so that I might figure out then develop the value add and lean all the way into it. And this will be the freedom that allows me to explore all these projects that exist in my head and in my journals. I’ve written and rewritten them for years and they matter, but they frankly might not ever translate into any recompense or recognition, just that I’ve exorcised them from my physical being and have the reward of now seeing them out in the world. And the ability to consistently do this will likely be commensurate with my level of self-satisfaction my own work/sense of purpose and meaning.
This is a heartening example. I love that you say not either or. Do both. Straddle. And cash in if you hit a lick--Art nouveau Pepsi and cigarettes so you can create the body of work you want/investigate your soul’s imaginings/follow serendipity in and on purpose.
Thank you for sharing.
Thanks for sharing this Dekera!
Maybe the Twitter self doesn't have to be a created "performative" false self, but just a limited self. I see it as showing just a sliver of me. That sliver is true, real, part of me. It's not the full picture.
So for example, I have a logging practice, where I jot down all my ideas unfiltered. As I review them and put them onto Substack, I'll take anything that seems writing/craft related, and bring that to Twitter. It's just a filtered version of the whole.
So I have one platform that is complex, unfiltered, and comprehensive (my whole journey and all my interests). Then I have another platform, where I'm curating just a sliver of that journey (the sliver that is most practical). Most people might only know me for the practical stuff, but some will click through to Substack and make sense of the whole person.
This makes a lot of sense. Thank you for making that distinction.
This was amazing. Making the case in way that's old yet new.
Thanks Michael. I'm on the lookout for stories of artists from the past that have lessons for our current times.
I think a lot of writers can relate to this struggle. I appreciate the dichotomy you created here, and it makes a lot of sense. But still, I wonder how practicable it is.
One thing I'm thinking about is a video essay about Vin Diesel I watched the other day (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw4155-zgDQ). Basically he was a really competent actor when he started out, and pursued a lot of artistic roles. But eventually he got pigeonholed into the "tough action star" persona. And he never recovered. It looks like Mucha was able to do both the art and the popularity, but how many fail?
Also, I wonder how your perspective on this has changed in the past 9 months. I've personally stopped writing on Twitter, and it seems like you have slowed down a lot too. What does marketing look like for you right now?
I also resonate a lot with this essay by Henrik Karlsson (https://www.henrikkarlsson.xyz/p/search-query), in which he argues that you should write as nichely and therefore passionately as possible. And then to try to find your 1,000 true fans that way. That seems more sustainable to me (not necessarily from a financial perspective, but from a production perspective, dealing with writer's block and such).
I don't know the answer.
What do you think?