How To Become Famous To The People Who Really Matter
This is a retread entry, but I've been having a conversation with someone lately who needs to hear this, so I'm making it handy. I think 3 years in the vault is long enough to be buried.
http://scottwoods.livejournal.com/14057.html
How To Become Famous To The People Who Really Matter
I got an email from a poet who saw me at a gig in Michigan earlier this year who is struggling with writer's block. She got lucky and caught me in the middle of doing a couple of things that I could multi-task on, so we chatted a bit. Upon further conversation, one of the issues that arose concerned her audience: she liked to read her poems to her family. After some more digging, I told her to stop doing this immediately.
For those among us who maintain as a goal the acceptance by our families of our art, I have this story, all true, all Scott:
My mother has never been a very impassioned woman, not physically. Not a lot of hugging and "I love you"s floating around my youth. Bear in mind, I never doubted her love, but she was a hard woman to read. Remains one. She is the hardest working woman I've ever known; her work ethic stands unparalleled in my mind. She's worked more hours before her retirement than any other man or woman I personally know, and more than almost any two of them combined. It's a shoe I couldn't fit if I tried, I've wasted so many opportunities to this point in my life. So she has always had my unchallenged respect. Conversely I have always wanted to impress her. That she can send very non-plussed signals about whatever I present to her as a personal success just makes me want to succeed even more at what I'm doing, whatever that might be at the time.
[Aside: Of course, this hardly ever translated into the areas of my life that were unequivocally important to her, like education and life-planning. I failed her as bad as a child could fail a mother on these counts not once, but twice (once in high school and once in college). And while these failures have, in part, fueled my drive in the creation and distribution of art in my life, I failed them NOT because I was obsessed by my art or because my muse would not let me sleep or because my art was so frighteningly good that I had to pursue it or fear dying a failure if I got my architecture degree; but because I was lazy, distracted, young-minded and fascinated with sex. I'll ever be trying to expiate the folly of my youth to my mother, I think.]
As I became serious about art in my life, primarily upon entering college, my mother pushed against these as life goals. She was the archetype of the mother who believed that you should "have something to fall back on", a wholly natural platform for a woman who came up from adversity in rural Nelsonville, graduated from college, went on to educate others and gave birth to four manly sons. So telling her in the middle of the beginning of my ninth grade year that I wanted to start attending one of the local career centers for music was out of the question, as was changing my major in college from arhcitecture to film.
[Aside: In reflection, I am glad that she didn't allow me to do either of those things. I was anywhere near as good as I thought I was. Sure, I was creative and driven as hell, but I didn't have the craftsmanship to match my enthusiasm. Not that I credit her entirely with having been able to judge my art; I know that most of her admonishments arose from my desire to take non-traditional acadmeic career courses and not because she thought my music or writing was lacking.]
After some honest taxonomizing of my abilities and resources, I settled into the art form that I felt fit me most appropriately: writing (which took years to come to terms with, but those are other, more sordid stories for another time). I set for myself the goal of working on it as hard as I could: finding my voice, learning to tap my toolbox at will, and developing the ability to know when something is at least a bad idea from the get-go and to not waste energy on the course.
At the same time, I also made a deal with myself that I would not share what I was working on or shooting for with my family until it was already in the can, already being shown or performed, and well at that. If I could not convince her (or the rest of my immediate family for that matter) that I was going to be an artist, then the mountain would have to come to Mohammed. So I started trolling the open mics and picking up features and releasing books and making a name for myself. as far as my family was generally concerned, I was a librarian who did poetry as hobby once a week.
Then I got a prime gig at the Museum of Art, a featured reading at one of the most prestigious institutions in town. Newspaper press, that sort of thing. When THAT was on the table and set in stone, I notified my mother. At least a hundred people showed up in that grand hall, and my mother sat in the front row as I scored a standing ovation in the middle of a poem and went on to otherwise lay the groundwork for my local career. She was proud, and it was a great night.
Of course, I perceived that as only the battle, not the war. I had to keep pounding away at the opposition, but only with successes. So I wouldn't speak on what I was doing with my art at family dinners or anything unless it was bigger or more pronounced than the last thing. I shared nothing locally with them: no local featured readings, no local shows...nothing in town unless it was in the newspaper anyway. I told them of tours out of state, newspaper coverage and, of course, the NPR airings.
[Aside: I made a recent exception with a show at the Thurber House earlier this year. The Thurber House is a nationally-known institution, one my mother was impressed with.]
The result of all of this chess playing was that my family now asks ME what I'm doing. They want to know what mountain I'm looking to climb that week, how my open mic night has been going. Two of my brothers even came out to the Writers' Block this year to see what the hooplah was all about. That's a win in The Book of Woods, believe me.
So: how to become famous to the people who really matter, ie. your family:
1) Make your intention known once.
This is the throwing down of the glove, the challenging. "I'm going to be a successful writer/musician/artist/poet/dancer/actor".
If you come from a woprking family like mine, you may have to color this staement with the implied self-sustaining that will most likely impress them. Eg. "I'm going to be able to live off of my poetry/writing/music/acting and I won't be living out of my car, either."
this challenge is more for you than them. More times than not, families can be very pitying to the resident artist and their dreams of grandeur, so know that once you say this, they'll likely forget it until they see you again. You, on the other hand, will have to wake up to the challenge every day.
2) Work on your craft.
Become good at what you do, and not just to yourself. We lie to ourselves all of the time, and can be our own worst critics (and not just in the traditional sense. You can easily convince yourself that what you created doesn't need editing in any way, which also makes you your own worst critic).
Pick out people in your artistic community whose opinions are the most important, again, not just to you, but to anyone who knows the score. The good writers, the craft-heads, the professors...whoever that is in your respective community. Be good enough to flatten them if it's possible.
[Note: Some people will never be impressed with you.]
3) Reveal only your set-in-stone, good-looking gigs to the family.
Don't tell them, "Hey I finally got a featured reading down at the local bar's open mic" unless the environment itself will impress them. Use the bar gig to atrract people who set up other gigs in other places. Then invite your family to the other places (art museum, writing center, college, former high school, etc.).
ALSO: Reveal newspaper articles that feature you.
DO NOT tell them about the things you have "lined up", "in the works" or "on tap". Stuff falls through all the time atthe last minute, especially in the performance poetry arena, so wait until you are IN before you reveal. Don't tell them about the anthology you submitted for. Show them the anthology you're printed IN.
4) Reveal incrementally.
Make the next thing you reveal bigger than the last thing until it doesn't get any bigger. For me, I'm capping out close with NPR and my poetry. I could pursue some other avenues for it (TV, etc.), but my family was locked and sold once millions of people heard three of my poems. I'm satisfied.
So go on: make somebody happy, but do it constructively. I HAVE to do all of this because I very likely ain't going back to college to get a degree...the one thing that would seal my mother's approval for all time. If I did, it would only be for my mother's sake, but I think she knows that, so I don't bother. I know plenty of people with degrees. I know very few who were on NPR three times. In the end, she likely feels the same way.
http://scottwoods.livejournal.com/14057.html
How To Become Famous To The People Who Really Matter
I got an email from a poet who saw me at a gig in Michigan earlier this year who is struggling with writer's block. She got lucky and caught me in the middle of doing a couple of things that I could multi-task on, so we chatted a bit. Upon further conversation, one of the issues that arose concerned her audience: she liked to read her poems to her family. After some more digging, I told her to stop doing this immediately.
For those among us who maintain as a goal the acceptance by our families of our art, I have this story, all true, all Scott:
My mother has never been a very impassioned woman, not physically. Not a lot of hugging and "I love you"s floating around my youth. Bear in mind, I never doubted her love, but she was a hard woman to read. Remains one. She is the hardest working woman I've ever known; her work ethic stands unparalleled in my mind. She's worked more hours before her retirement than any other man or woman I personally know, and more than almost any two of them combined. It's a shoe I couldn't fit if I tried, I've wasted so many opportunities to this point in my life. So she has always had my unchallenged respect. Conversely I have always wanted to impress her. That she can send very non-plussed signals about whatever I present to her as a personal success just makes me want to succeed even more at what I'm doing, whatever that might be at the time.
[Aside: Of course, this hardly ever translated into the areas of my life that were unequivocally important to her, like education and life-planning. I failed her as bad as a child could fail a mother on these counts not once, but twice (once in high school and once in college). And while these failures have, in part, fueled my drive in the creation and distribution of art in my life, I failed them NOT because I was obsessed by my art or because my muse would not let me sleep or because my art was so frighteningly good that I had to pursue it or fear dying a failure if I got my architecture degree; but because I was lazy, distracted, young-minded and fascinated with sex. I'll ever be trying to expiate the folly of my youth to my mother, I think.]
As I became serious about art in my life, primarily upon entering college, my mother pushed against these as life goals. She was the archetype of the mother who believed that you should "have something to fall back on", a wholly natural platform for a woman who came up from adversity in rural Nelsonville, graduated from college, went on to educate others and gave birth to four manly sons. So telling her in the middle of the beginning of my ninth grade year that I wanted to start attending one of the local career centers for music was out of the question, as was changing my major in college from arhcitecture to film.
[Aside: In reflection, I am glad that she didn't allow me to do either of those things. I was anywhere near as good as I thought I was. Sure, I was creative and driven as hell, but I didn't have the craftsmanship to match my enthusiasm. Not that I credit her entirely with having been able to judge my art; I know that most of her admonishments arose from my desire to take non-traditional acadmeic career courses and not because she thought my music or writing was lacking.]
After some honest taxonomizing of my abilities and resources, I settled into the art form that I felt fit me most appropriately: writing (which took years to come to terms with, but those are other, more sordid stories for another time). I set for myself the goal of working on it as hard as I could: finding my voice, learning to tap my toolbox at will, and developing the ability to know when something is at least a bad idea from the get-go and to not waste energy on the course.
At the same time, I also made a deal with myself that I would not share what I was working on or shooting for with my family until it was already in the can, already being shown or performed, and well at that. If I could not convince her (or the rest of my immediate family for that matter) that I was going to be an artist, then the mountain would have to come to Mohammed. So I started trolling the open mics and picking up features and releasing books and making a name for myself. as far as my family was generally concerned, I was a librarian who did poetry as hobby once a week.
Then I got a prime gig at the Museum of Art, a featured reading at one of the most prestigious institutions in town. Newspaper press, that sort of thing. When THAT was on the table and set in stone, I notified my mother. At least a hundred people showed up in that grand hall, and my mother sat in the front row as I scored a standing ovation in the middle of a poem and went on to otherwise lay the groundwork for my local career. She was proud, and it was a great night.
Of course, I perceived that as only the battle, not the war. I had to keep pounding away at the opposition, but only with successes. So I wouldn't speak on what I was doing with my art at family dinners or anything unless it was bigger or more pronounced than the last thing. I shared nothing locally with them: no local featured readings, no local shows...nothing in town unless it was in the newspaper anyway. I told them of tours out of state, newspaper coverage and, of course, the NPR airings.
[Aside: I made a recent exception with a show at the Thurber House earlier this year. The Thurber House is a nationally-known institution, one my mother was impressed with.]
The result of all of this chess playing was that my family now asks ME what I'm doing. They want to know what mountain I'm looking to climb that week, how my open mic night has been going. Two of my brothers even came out to the Writers' Block this year to see what the hooplah was all about. That's a win in The Book of Woods, believe me.
So: how to become famous to the people who really matter, ie. your family:
1) Make your intention known once.
This is the throwing down of the glove, the challenging. "I'm going to be a successful writer/musician/artist/poet/dancer/actor".
If you come from a woprking family like mine, you may have to color this staement with the implied self-sustaining that will most likely impress them. Eg. "I'm going to be able to live off of my poetry/writing/music/acting and I won't be living out of my car, either."
this challenge is more for you than them. More times than not, families can be very pitying to the resident artist and their dreams of grandeur, so know that once you say this, they'll likely forget it until they see you again. You, on the other hand, will have to wake up to the challenge every day.
2) Work on your craft.
Become good at what you do, and not just to yourself. We lie to ourselves all of the time, and can be our own worst critics (and not just in the traditional sense. You can easily convince yourself that what you created doesn't need editing in any way, which also makes you your own worst critic).
Pick out people in your artistic community whose opinions are the most important, again, not just to you, but to anyone who knows the score. The good writers, the craft-heads, the professors...whoever that is in your respective community. Be good enough to flatten them if it's possible.
[Note: Some people will never be impressed with you.]
3) Reveal only your set-in-stone, good-looking gigs to the family.
Don't tell them, "Hey I finally got a featured reading down at the local bar's open mic" unless the environment itself will impress them. Use the bar gig to atrract people who set up other gigs in other places. Then invite your family to the other places (art museum, writing center, college, former high school, etc.).
ALSO: Reveal newspaper articles that feature you.
DO NOT tell them about the things you have "lined up", "in the works" or "on tap". Stuff falls through all the time atthe last minute, especially in the performance poetry arena, so wait until you are IN before you reveal. Don't tell them about the anthology you submitted for. Show them the anthology you're printed IN.
4) Reveal incrementally.
Make the next thing you reveal bigger than the last thing until it doesn't get any bigger. For me, I'm capping out close with NPR and my poetry. I could pursue some other avenues for it (TV, etc.), but my family was locked and sold once millions of people heard three of my poems. I'm satisfied.
So go on: make somebody happy, but do it constructively. I HAVE to do all of this because I very likely ain't going back to college to get a degree...the one thing that would seal my mother's approval for all time. If I did, it would only be for my mother's sake, but I think she knows that, so I don't bother. I know plenty of people with degrees. I know very few who were on NPR three times. In the end, she likely feels the same way.