Soul Murder

Posted on March 15, 2005 in Writing Groups

Just about every creative person worries about selling out. And some do. Defining selling out can be difficult. Pointing to another person who has received her or his break and then returning that finger to you can demolish your self-confidence. Is it always the mediocre socialites who triumph? Perhaps that is not what striving to create is all about.

Lana Castle, author of Bipolar Disorder Demystified: Mastering the Tightrope of Manic Depression, thinks selling out involves adopting certain soul-exterminating beliefs:

• There are no new ideas, and even if there were, you can’t generate enough to make a living.
• There’s too much competition for you to break in. Your work is good — but not good enough.
• You’re too sensitive to be an artist. You’d have to be much tougher to survive such a cutthroat business.
• You have to know some big-name person or you’ll never get a break.
• You have to sell your soul to make it big.

“Do I dare disturb the Universe?” T.S. Eliot’s Prufrock asks. That’s the central question every one of us who desires to write or to paint asks her or himself. And will the Universe care?

Castle goes on:

Many people mock artists who are trying to develop their talents and have trouble seeing the potential in their early work. A local science fiction/fantasy/horror writing critique group…calls this belittling practice “squashing a fairy”. Wendy Wheeler, longtime leader of the group, suggests critiquing the work of novices with extra sensitivity and care.

No kidding! I remember one drop-in asshole who called my work “masturbation” without having read it! And I’ve seen my share of technical writers who have no clue about originality or creativity. These I mark as the most blatant of the sellouts, picking up books that tell about how to write the best-selling novel without having first found their own voice. For them, literature is a production line. These especially try to tell the rest of us to give up. Because if they don’t get published — if we raise the quality of what is available to be read — they will give up.

It’s a pity because the world can stand more books written with feeling, more books that raise the emotions.