A reader writes:
You know, you’ve mentioned this issue of “readiness” in at least a couple of posts now. [ed. note: she is referring to What the @#$%! Am I Doing with My Life] I think intuitively I get this, but maybe you could talk about how to practice and/or recognize readiness. For e.g., I didn’t get why you said in one of your previous posts that you wouldn’t be ready to write a film. But maybe it’s because you haven’t been living the steps that would lead to that?
Great question. Please allow me to respond with a series of questions that you can ask yourself:
1. Am I ready to do the work just once?
Go read the comments section on Nathan Bransford’s blog. There are any number of posters who you can tell are further along in their dreams than they are in their work. (And bless them for it.)
Depending on what you’re doing, you may be in for a long apprenticeship. Would you really want to get your big break if you couldn’t deliver even once?
2. Am I ready to do the work with some frequency and consistency?
You think Genre Writer X is a hack, but she’s producing a book a year. You laugh at the unintentionally funny columnist in your community newspaper, but his work does meet a certain standard.
Even being consistently mediocre is harder than it looks. You may have an excellent spec script for a sitcom, but could you produce 22 episodes a year?
3. Am I ready to handle the attention?
Say you create your breakout work. Good job. So what else do you have?
“What else?” is the first question the gatekeepers ask. If you don’t have a vision for the next thing (and the next and the next) then there is a chance that you’ve wasted that particular opportunity.
4. Am I ready to go out and attract attention?
Actors have it easy. Their need for attention borders on the biological. The rest of us struggle with promotion, self- and otherwise.
It’s not just a matter of being good at radio, TV, print, etc. It’s being able to take a project, put it on your back, and carry it for years.
5. Am I ready to sustain attention?
You’re a success! Enjoy it! You’re a success! Now you have a f*cking target on your back!
Do well and your fans love you, but they also start to raise their expectations. Do well and your critics and enemies are actively trying to take your ass down. How are you going to deal with all that (in public) while also getting the work done?
6. Am I ready to make use of that sustained attention?
I always think of Michael Pollan as a writer who’s not only at the top of his game creatively, but who’s also assumed a leadership role in our culture.
Now we’re talking about the full integration of work, audience, and public profile. We’re talking about having a direct effect on how people talk, think, behave, vote. Are you ready to be at the center of all that?
***
If this sounds overwhelming, don’t worry about it too much. You don’t have a lot of control over how, when or why things happen. We’re all familiar with stories of people for whom success came too fast. We also know people who never got their due.
That said, if you’re starting out and you have grand ambitions, then the aforementioned questions could help you in your quest.
If you want to be the Michael Pollan of sustainable architecture, then there are certain skills that you can practice to help make that happen. Join Toastmasters in order to bone up on your public speaking. Take up podcasting to work on your radio mojo. The big dream is completely impossible, but also eminently doable.
6 Comments
March 4, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Carlos Castaneda’s guy Don Juan once told him, in his quest to become a warrior (one step along the way to becoming a sorcerer), “A warrior knows that he is waiting, and a warrior knows what he is waiting for.”
No matter what one thinks of Castaneda’s experiences as a whole — of his books, for that matter — I always found that advice to resonate deeply in me. I don’t think you need to be able to articulate what the “what” is that you’re waiting for, but I do think you need to be alert to its arrival — with or without advance warning — and you do need to be ready to leap when it comes.
And then there’s the first half, easily overlooked: you have to know that that waiting is part of what you are. If you can’t “feel” yourself waiting, just assert that you are, I’m not sure I believe that you are indeed waiting.
Too soft, too touchy-feely or New Age-y? I don’t know. Feels right to me, though.
March 5, 2009 at 10:46 am
Outstanding post. This is like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs for creative types. Call it Cass’s hierarchy of artistic readiness. Bring on the pyramid diagram.
March 5, 2009 at 10:58 am
Great subject and comments. Personally, I find myself beginning to think I’m some character in a play by Beckett. Waiting. Then there’s just enough reinforcement–once in awhile you press the lever and the cracker is delivered–to keep you going until the next cracker. I guess you learn a lot about yourself trying to do this.
March 5, 2009 at 11:13 am
@JES: The Castaneda *does* sound New Age-y (why can’t it be an accountant who is doing the waiting?), but also very right on.
@Lars: Thanks for the kind words. And I love the pyramid idea. My last class is next Tuesday. Then I bust out of much-talked-about Photoshop.
March 6, 2009 at 12:38 am
I talk at conferences–three last year. People approach me and I have to speak to them coherently about my projects, as well as theirs. It’s a bitch–way harder than I thought. I fail at it more often than I thought I would. But sometimes I do Okay. And I pay attention to the famous writers around me and I listen and learn.
That’s how I know I’m ready to accept the publicity of writing.
March 6, 2009 at 4:02 pm
@JES. I think that’s perfect. It takes some time to even get to the point where you have an awareness of waiting.
General comment 1: I’m reading “Outliers” right now and all of these steps sound like they are a natural part of the 10,000 hours, or 10 years, that it takes to master something. (So I should achieve awesomeness by 2011, 2013, or 2016, depending on which math I use!)
General comment 2: New bands with experienced members really get how important readiness is — they play out of town as much as possible before dreaming of playing a hometown show, because that first one makes or breaks the buzz. Not sure what the corollary is for writers but I liked Bets’s comment on public speaking. (I also like the “shockingly good” on your web site.)
@Dennis Cass: Followup Q: Michael Pollan is a great example but raises for me the question that is really always on my mind, and that is, how important is this kind of specialization in getting to where you want to go? I think it’s bothering me because I believe that I must be able to answer it, and I don’t yet have that answer — that I want to be known for X. And I know it’s not necessarily a matter of subject specialization (take Steve Almond http://www.stevenalmond.com/, for e.g.) but it does seem necessary to be known as the writer who views the world through a certain lens.
This is now the end of my ridiculously long comment.