I have friends? Huh.

 

I have friends? Huh.

Wot she said.

 

All my friends are creatives, too.

 

I keep the perspective that my books are just for entertainment and are vastly unimportant in the grand scheme of things. That makes it easy not to mind when people don't find them brilliant. But I am guilty of ignoring the family more than I should when I've got my head deep in a manuscript.

 

Tooth-brushing must not be neglected. Also the vital flossing. Otherwise the dental bills you will have.

 

I've always found the artistic temperament to be mostly BS and something that people generally grow out of.

It's a form of modelling really - like the little kid who puts on the gumboots and that hat and holds a toy watering can while mum actually waters the garden. They are trying it out and then one day they'll do it for real.

People who do this in regard to writing put on what they think are the clothing of writers - some start drinking, some moan about writer's block, some go into mystical piss about their "muse". But they don't realise that unless they actually *write* at some point then they'll never be a writer.

For those who've been in other forums for writers, it's quite incredibly how different kboards is. No one here wastes time arguing about show vs. tell or the precise shade of puce your submission letter needs to be. Most people here are *doing* rather than talking about doing.

Pretty much every writer I've met in my life who was *doing* was a relatively normal human on most levels.

 

I don't seem to suffer from this condition and it's probably best...I own far too many weapons. 

 

Looking at my sales-figures, it is easy to conclude that I am lightyears away from making a living as a writer.

I know that technically, you write and publish translates for many into being a writer. Me? I'll call myself one if ever I manage to make an actual living as a writer.

Until then, I doubt I'll have the time or means to indulge in having an 'artistic temperament', I might experiment with it once I get there though. For five minutes, then get back to work writing.

Seriously, artistic temperament sounds like someone missed a vital part of their upbringing: learning to exercise self-control.

 

I don't think I have an artistic temperament but I am quite introverted when it comes to friends.

The only thing I've noticed is other people getting a bit awkward when they ask me about my books. It's like they feel they should be polite and ask but they don't really know what to say about it as they know nothing about the field. I like being asked, but I usually just reply with 'good thanks, just finishing another book. Sales are ok' and leave it at that.

I need more writer friends I think

 

Crappy people are crappy people and it kind of annoys me when creativity is blamed for bad behavior. Either you can handle your &$%! or you can't. Other people shouldn't be burdened with an insufferable person, no matter what they're working on.

 

I've learned to turn it on and off by choice. I'm very good with people, and my writing rarely gets in the way of dealing with other people.

 

I still have friends because they all life far away so I have an inherent excuse to blow them off. We keep in touch by exchanging political, joke, and porn e-mails, and getting together once a year or so. Works for us.

 

I've always found the artistic temperament to be mostly BS and something that people generally grow out of.

It's a form of modelling really - like the little kid who puts on the gumboots and that hat and holds a toy watering can while mum actually waters the garden. They are trying it out and then one day they'll do it for real.

For those who've been in other forums for writers, it's quite incredibly how different kboards is. No one here wastes time arguing about show vs. tell or the precise shade of puce your submission letter needs to be. Most people here are *doing* rather than talking about doing.

Pretty much every writer I've met in my life who was *doing* was a relatively normal human on most levels.

I'm deeply sympathetic with your workmanlike approach to the craft, Matthew. Your criticism of what some people take to be the "artistic temperament" has a lot of truth to it. But your own attitude to writing is also an expression, I believe, of the artistic temperament. The temperament is not necessarily prima donna stuff. It's simply the set of one's natural inclinations as an artist. The real craftsman, you contend, should be naturally inclined to the work, and when he is, then he's apt to be a pretty balanced character. Again, a lot of truth to that.

 

I've learned to turn it on and off by choice. I'm very good with people, and my writing rarely gets in the way of dealing with other people.

Are there any special strategies you use to, as you say, turn your artistic temperament on and off by choice?

 

Friends?

I knew I was forgetting something.

 

I keep the perspective that my books are just for entertainment and are vastly unimportant in the grand scheme of things. That makes it easy not to mind when people don't find them brilliant. But I am guilty of ignoring the family more than I should when I've got my head deep in a manuscript.

If I didn't see Dara's pic next to this comment, I would have assumed I'd written it.

 

Are there any special strategies you use to, as you say, turn your artistic temperament on and off by choice?

Alcohol.

 

Friends are those short people you used to hang around with at school, right? It's been so long, I can hardly remember!

 

I'm deeply sympathetic with your workmanlike approach to the craft, Matthew. Your criticism of what some people take to be the "artistic temperament" has a lot of truth to it. But your own attitude to writing is also an expression, I believe, of the artistic temperament. The temperament is not necessarily prima donna stuff. It's simply the set of one's natural inclinations as an artist. The real craftsman, you contend, should be naturally inclined to the work, and when he is, then he's apt to be a pretty balanced character. Again, a lot of truth to that.

I think that I have my perspective because I was fortunate/hard-working/etc enough to succeed when I was quite young and I went very quickly into producing hundreds of thousands of words per year for money. It really smashed away a lot of the BS around writing - eg, the muse and other mystical woo.

It was quite odd for a while - there were so many writers I'd meet who were trapped by this woo and into reading books about woo, etc and yet weren't doing the only one thing they needed to: actually writing something. There is one girl I know who in 2003 told me she was a writer. I've run into her over the years and to date she still has not published anything, does not have anything to show me and refuses to talk about her "work". The truth is: she has no work.

I don't dismiss the artistic temperament stuff entirely - there are times when my fictional world is far preferable to this one and I have been very guilty of living elsewhere mentally for long periods of time.

I guess what I'm saying is that I got put through the fire of words for money at the right age and thankfully it destroyed most of the mystical stuff around writing.

 

I guess what I'm saying is that I got put through the fire of words for money at the right age and thankfully it destroyed most of the mystical stuff around writing.

I hear what you're saying, Matthew. I'm going to write a Daily Muse post tomorrow on just the point you're making (I won't be quoting you, don't worry, though I may refer to a conversation on Kindle Boards).

By the way, I want you to know that the name of my website, The Comic Muse, is only a metaphor for the source of artistic inspiration, not a plea for a namby-pamby view of artistic creation.

 

After about two years of politely dodging my future sister-in-law's nonstop attempts to force me to spend all my free time drinking coffee in her apartment while she told me story after story of her own life without showing any interest in mine -- after her attempts to force me to commit all my non-working time to her became increasingly more rude and pointed -- I finally had to tell her bluntly that I'm a writer, and I don't like spending my precious spare time doing anything but writing, and she's going to have to deal with it and accept me because we're going to be family some day, and I'm not going to change to make her happy.  I told her one get-together every two months was the most I could commit to, and as we are relying on my writing to keep my fiance out of student loan debt, she was going to have to accept that me having my writing time was more important than her getting to pour her manufactured drama into my ear while I died of boredom on her couch.

Maybe I was a little too harsh.

But I did finally tell her all this after she suggested that  I ghost-write the story of her romantic relationship with my fiance's brother, which is all fine and dandy but not even remotely more interesting than anybody else's very average and normal relationship.  She graciously offered to pay me "a cut" to do all the work of writing her narcissistic navel-gazing yawn-fest of a memoir, which she was sure would be instantly picked up by a publisher "unlike your other books" and make her millions and millions of dollars, because everything about her life is just that interesting.

Nah, I think I wasn't harsh enough.  If it makes me the a-hole writer, then I'm an a-hole writer.

But this thread does remind me of a good story from one of my pals' literary criticism classes in college.  His professor told him, "Don't ever make friends with a writer!  They are HORRIBLE PEOPLE!"

 

Artistic temperament? I'm not an artist. I'm a guy who wrote a book. And it's not a very important book.

Perhaps there was a time when authors had artistic temperaments. But the lack of gatekeepers has significantly diluted the personality profiles.

 

I've always written, it's the publishing part that is fairly new. I've always had friends, and have some arriving on Friday (when you live on the water in FL, it's a perk that your friends actually want to come see you.)

I have a nine-year-old and a husband, so I don't get to have the luxury of having an artistic temperament. I write, I arrange for edits, I format, I get my covers, and I publish. I work at sticking to a schedule...

I also get requests from my agent and the movie producer, those are more commitments that must be squeezed into the schedule.

 

Even though I am friendly and confident, which reads as outgoing, I am an introvert.  If I don't get time alone I start to feel frazzled and uncentered. I have lost friends over my refusal to go out when they want, they have blamed it on artistic temperament. I say good riddance, if those people couldn't take the time to actually listen to my reasons, they weren't really friends in the first place.

 

I told her one get-together every two months was the most I could commit to, and as we are relying on my writing to keep my fiance out of student loan debt, she was going to have to accept that me having my writing time was more important than her getting to pour her manufactured drama into my ear while I died of boredom on her couch.

This story does remind us that we have to stay disciplined, and that we can make reasonable demands of others to respect the time we have to devote to our work.