Being an "Author": The Bottom-Up Approach

[forgotmyantidepressants]

I do think writing/story telling is an art form.

But lately, instead of sitting down to write and thinking, "I want to make art", I've been thinking, "I'm going to put everything I am into this story. If it makes a lasting impression on someone else, awesome. If not, I get to try again."

It's taken some of the (self-inflicted) pressure off myself and made writing more fun.

 

[GuiltyCowboy]

Was he less of a craftsman?

Of course not. He was not less of a craftsman. The work, however, shows less craft - or, more specifically, his lack of interest in using his craft.

The historical importance doesn't erase the artistic innovation and power.

I don't think anyone would disagree with that. But, from the moment it was completed, it was used as a piece of civic propaganda. It's very difficult to separate its claim to 'greatness' from that.

I ain't saying it's bad but it's not a patch on Donatello's David or some of Michelangelo's other sculpture work. And yet it's far more famous.

 

[yowser]

This is an interesting question, with lots of variation in responses.

If you write, are you a 'writer?' If you take photographs, are you a 'photographer?'

I do both, but in the second, I would automatically have to add 'amateur’ to photographer and wouldn't be happy otherwise.

But I identify as a 'writer.' It has been part of my regular employed work, so it is a professional 'skill' but I would also say that the difference between writing fiction and professional or non-fiction work is huge.

I have always been fascinated by 'writers.' Anyone, ANYONE, who can earn their keep by writing gets my admiration, even if their output makes me cringe. They're still making a go of it.

Many years ago (not sure they still do it) the UK newspaper The Guardian, had a weekend edition, and in the 'arts' section (I think that is what it was called) they always had a short piece about one writer or another, although with a peculiar slant. There would be a photo of a writer's workplace, and then the author would talk about their process and that particular place, where they would do their writing. Sometimes it was just a messy desk, sometimes next to a window with a view, very often just a corner, with maybe a bookcase at hand. Many said they didn't want a window nearby since it was distracting. The range was vastly intriguing, and reminded me of how differently writers, good writers, approached their art (craft? This distinction always seemed a fruitless distinction.) Discussion about process here in the AH (which I inevitably find interesting) seconds this impression.

So I identify as a writer, even though it has never nourished me with more than auxiliary income, pocket change, nor played more than a minor role in my career. But it is far more than a hobby, whether one just considers my Literotica output or not. I think writing is a mindset, even a way of looking at life.

 

[Statius]

Of course not. He was not less of a craftsman. The work, however, shows less craft - or, more specifically, his lack of interest in using his craft.


I don't think anyone would disagree with that. But, from the moment it was completed, it was used as a piece of civic propaganda. It's very difficult to separate its claim to 'greatness' from that.

I ain't saying it's bad but it's not a patch on Donatello's David or some of Michelangelo's other sculpture work. And yet it's far more famous.

I'm working on a massive rewrite of a story I published a few years ago. Same MC, same love interest, same basic story, same plot bones, same everything. Except the perspective has changed, the reason has changed: mood, tone, vocabulary, objective- all different. It changes the story when you change the emphasis. When the approach changes, the work of art changes, the tools you use change because your mind has changed the tools. A reader/ viewer can see that in the finished product, but not understand why, only the creator can know that.

 

[GuiltyCowboy]

I think there's art, and there's craft, and then there's activity.

It's taken me a while but I now realize I write as an erotic activity. It's basically masturbation. It gives me (erotic) pleasure.

At first, I'd publish my writing, excited to share it and see if anyone enjoyed it. But now the publishing is completely irrelevant, if I even get around to it.

(I think I should publish more, to be part of the community, to contribute etc. But I also think I should have sex more too.)

Anyway, in light of this, is my writing an art or a craft? I craft the work carefully, I aim to crack open some kernel of human sexuality - like an artist - but functionally it's an activity that's for my own pleasure. It's main purpose is that I do it - it's in the 'doing'. It's an activity. Whether it's read or not is beside its point.

 

[anthrodisiac]

Why bother labeling it at all? Labels are for the benefits of ego, that's why!

At the end of the day, I really don't get a say in how other people define my work. One can try to define the terms, IOnecan claim it's art, beautiful craftsmanship, that their An Artist, but unless others agree with it, it don't mean jack diddly squat to anyone but them.

So, might as well write, work on improving said writing, continue to iterate and work, and let the labels fall where they may.

 

[FrancesScott]

If someone wants to give themselves a participation award title of "artist", they are completely free to do so.

This is presumably as the worth of art is not necessarily correlated to commercial success nor to appreciation of the artist in their own life time.

Your gate keeping on this issue seems motivated. You don’t get to define what is and is not art, nor to determine its worth.

Participation is a creative act. Creative acts are art. If you want to stratify what counts as art, then that’s purely your own taxonomy and the rest of us need not agree.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding what you are saying, but I don’t think so.

 

[alohadave]

Edit: doesn't this imply that at some stage 'craft' stops and 'art' takes over and therefore art is indeed something that is different from craft?

Art is the result of craft. You get better at the craft until you can use it to express your art.

 

[XerXesXu]

I think a smut teller is just an old fashioned storyteller for a different crowd, as in, back in the day, there were people, usually an old guy with a deep voice, who would sit around and weave a tale that others found entertaining. Back in the 40s, when I was a kid, I'd sit around and listen to the men, talking...By a boat house, a fire going, often a little rope from boat lines burning, seldom if ever alcohol, never any women, never sexual. All of them spoke, but only a few really had the floor. The best were the men who used inflection and hesitation, a little dry humor, and the truth didn't matter, but it had to be reasonable and probable. It was our television.

Like the pub raconteur.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

This is presumably as the worth of art is not necessarily correlated to commercial success nor to appreciation of the artist in their own life time.

Your gate keeping on this issue seems motivated. You don’t get to define what is and is not art, nor to determine its worth.

Participation is a creative act. Creative acts are art. If you want to stratify what counts as art, then that’s purely your own taxonomy and the rest of us need not agree.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding what you are saying, but I don’t think so.

Let me explain my opinion this way where the core issue of this thread is concerned:

As a hobby, if I was to paint a picture, and was proud of it, I could call myself an "artist" and feel good about doing so.

In my mind, that doesn't make me an artist and it doesn't make what I created "art". I wouldn't hype myself to others as being an artist or being more knowledgeable about art than I actually am.

I might share my creation with others, but I would do so seeking criticism and feedback, not praise. I haven't earned praise yet, and I know that, but encouragement would be nice. If I wanted to get better, I would embrace the slings and arrows of a critical audience and examine how true artists honed their craft over time. I would then try to better myself.

This has nothing to do with commercial value or success. It has everything to do with humility and personal growth.

 

[Seurat]

I don't see most things as black/white, but with a whole pantone array of colors. To paraphrase the man, I may not be able to define what art is, but I know what I like. The possibilities are so varied that I can't define things into singular categories.

Somewhere I have all my art and philosophy books talking about the question of art and intent (Duschamp's 'Fountain' immediately comes to mind) as well as the split between the sublime and the beautiful. If you are going to ask a 'is it this or is it that' question, you should first lay out specific criteria and non-criteria for each side. Otherwise, the fluidity of the descriptions will never allow a consensus.

Or was that the intent?

 

[FrancesScott]

Let me explain my opinion this way where the core issue of this thread is concerned:

As a hobby, if I was to paint a picture, and was proud of it, I could call myself an "artist" and feel good about doing so.

In my mind, that doesn't make me an artist and it doesn't make what I created "art". I wouldn't hype myself to others as being an artist or being more knowledgeable about art than I actually am.

I might share my creation with others, but I would do so seeking criticism and feedback, not praise. I haven't earned praise yet, and I know that, but encouragement would be nice. If I wanted to get better, I would embrace the slings and arrows of a critical audience and examine how true artists honed their craft over time. I would then try to better myself.

This has nothing to do with commercial value or success. It has everything to do with humility and personal growth.

I’m not seeing the humility, maybe you are not expressing yourself as clearly as you might. If you apply your rubric to yourself, then fine. But as a way of judging the merit of others, not so much. It comes across as gate keeping, whether intended or not.

 

[SimonDoom]

Art is the result of craft. You get better at the craft until you can use it to express your art.

This is sort of how I see it. They're not wholly separate things. Some people tend to idealize "art" as being something that is in an entirely different sphere, and my point is to push back on that. You create art much as you create other things, and many of what we consider the greatest works of art were made by people who had spent a long time mastering the craft.

 

[forgotmyantidepressants]

This is sort of how I see it. They're not wholly separate things. Some people tend to idealize "art" as being something that is in an entirely different sphere, and my point is to push back on that. You create art much as you create other things, and many of what we consider the greatest works of art were made by people who had spent a long time mastering the craft.

Is a person not an artist until they master the craft?

 

[GuiltyCowboy]

They're not wholly separate things. Some people tend to idealize "art" as being something that is in an entirely different sphere, and my point is to push back on that.

I really think you’re mixing up skill and vision.

The better you master your skill, the better you can convey your vision. That’s certainly true.

But that doesn’t then mean that mastering a skill gives you vision. Which is what you seem to be arguing, no? They’re different things and that’s why craft and art are not the same.

 

[old_prof]

Is a person not an artist until they master the craft?

Is it possible to master a craft? To me mastering a craft is a journey, not a destination. I guess I think when you stop improving, stop trying new things, stop experimenting, you stop being an artist.

 

[SimonDoom]

I really think you’re mixing up skill and vision.

The better you master your skill, the better you can convey your vision. That’s certainly true.

But that doesn’t then mean that mastering a skill gives you vision. Which is what you seem to be arguing, no? They’re different things and that’s why craft and art are not the same.

I'm not saying that at all. Talent and vision are not equally distributed. Some have it more than others. And those who have it can create greater art than those who don't no matter how much time they spend trying to master the craft. Craft is a necessary, but not sufficient condition. But I think for most it IS necessary, and I think emphasis on vision and artistry at the expense of emphasis on craft is usually a mistake, because for those who truly have vision it will show in their work once they master the craft. I would still say this is true of Michaelangelo. Leonardo, Mozart, Shakespeare, Twain, and most other artists I can think of.

 

[forgotmyantidepressants]

I think when you stop improving, stop trying new things, stop experimenting, you stop being an artist.

I would agree with this. "Bad" art is still art even if the artist/craftsman failed to convey the message.

 

[StillStunned]

Is a person not an artist until they master the craft?

This is an interesting point. Is art created deliberately, from an understanding of what you're doing? If something happens by chance, what separates it from beauty that occurs in nature?

 

[SimonDoom]

Is a person not an artist until they master the craft?

No, that's the opposite of what I think. I don't believe "being an artist" is a thing. It's not a guild or a status. A child who creates a finger painting creates art, of a sort, although it probably isn't that good.

But craft matters. For most people, there's no short cut. It always helps, in my opinion, to start from the ground up and master the nuts and bolts. The more you do that, the better your art is likely to be.

My sense is that people get defensive about this because they're fairly new to writing and they think, "Is he telling me I can't be an artist if I haven't put in my 10,000 hours first?" That's not what I'm saying. I AM saying the 10,000 hours help create better art. I think many "artists" would be better off not thinking of themselves so much as artists. Think about your craft, and the art will come.

 

[old_prof]

This is an interesting point. Is art created deliberately, from an understanding of what you're doing? If something happens by chance, what separates it from beauty that occurs in nature?

I think you have to have an intent to create art. You have to be expressing something.

The artist's ability to express that may be too limited to succeed in communicating their idea in the way they want. But it's still art.

I know there's a second school of thought that says it's art because the beholder feels something from it, whether or not that sentiment was intended.
I'm definitely in the school that it's art because of the passion with which it was created rather than the passion for which it is perceived.

 

[forgotmyantidepressants]

This is an interesting point. Is art created deliberately, from an understanding of what you're doing? If something happens by chance, what separates it from beauty that occurs in nature?

I don't think "art" happens on accident... but maybe I'm wrong.

There’s no way Michaelangelo looked at that hunk of marble and didn't think something along the lines of: "I’m going to carve David out of that rock. I'm going to use all of my skills/knowledge to the best of my abilities because I want it to be really good."

Mark Twain probably sat down to write Huckleberry Finn thinking about how he wanted to satirize the Antebellum south. He probably wanted it to be really good, the best he could do, because he really wanted to make his point.

 

[SimonDoom]

Mark Twain probably sat down to write Huckleberry Finn thinking about how he wanted to satirize the Antebellum south. He probably wanted it to be really good, the best he could do, because he really wanted to make his point.

And in Twain's case, as he says in the foreward to the book, he made painstaking efforts to render the accents correctly, based on long experience. Twain, I think, is a very good example of the "craftsman as artist." He had been a journalist and essayist for a long time before writing Huck Finn. He was careful and experienced and persnickety with words. He had perfected an eye for detail and talent for description after years of writing.

 

[caleb35]

This is an excellent thread filled with many good points. I'll simply add that, to me, a big part of being a writer is working on your craft. The first most important step is putting words down on paper/screen. After that, though, it's a matter of continually trying to make sure that your latest work is the best work to-date, utilizing everything you've learned from your prior works.

 

[txblush]

Why bother labeling it at all? Labels are for the benefits of ego, that's why!

At the end of the day, I really don't get a say in how other people define my work. One can try to define the terms, IOnecan claim it's art, beautiful craftsmanship, that their An Artist, but unless others agree with it, it don't mean jack diddly squat to anyone but them.

So, might as well write, work on improving said writing, continue to iterate and work, and let the labels fall where they may.

For me personally.... I discovered my talent for writing when I was a high school dropout. I didn't have the 'skills,' but I was an avid reader. Most of the books I read growing up where from male authors like Sydney Sheldon (as a teenager), John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee series (20something) were two of my favorite authors. Not to mention the one book I read titled, The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald later in life. I spent years reading, 'how to books and over those years I've collected a library on books from the Writer's Market (I think that was name, but it's been years since I was a subscriber.)

Now, here's the funny part of my journey as a reader... I absolutely refused to read a Harlequin Romance Novel, even if you paid me, to read one. Until<drum roll> I was thirty-five and I was blown away by the author's ability to describe a sensual scene. And that's when I began to start writing and learning everything I could about how to write a compelling story. Every chance, I could get, while raising my kids. Fast forward to being forty-seven years old and I was hooked by a sexual fantasy scene that would not stop replaying itself in my head. It was like a broken record, until I penned it in ink during my breaks at work. I showed it to a friend and he was blown away. His comment to me was.... I wouldn't want to meet you in a dark alley, but I also wouldn't mind pulling up a chair and sitting in your mind.
Ever since then I haven't stopped writing erotic content and learning from authors who publish their work here and post advise.

@SimonDoom. Thank you for opening the door so I could step out on a limb and share my writer's journey.