Status anxiety
There was a disturbance in the discourse on Twitter recently and I found myself drawn to it like a moth to flame. Generally I avoid such temptations as I am laser-focused on working and I am in no way itching for a distraction. Any distraction from the flashing cursor.
A Hollywood director was boasting that as a bad-ass, cold-bloodied professional creative he did not have time for the muses to gift him a fruit basket of inspiration. He eschewed motivation in favour of (shouting) action. A man of his calibre had to get the job done. Feelings were transitory and so on and so forth. It all came off as a bit sub-Hemingway.
I dislike the macho exaltation of steely discipline, ice baths and must-do attitude in the arts. Real pros have no time for the clouds to part and visions to be revealed to them. They. Do. The. Job. Day. In. Day. Out. Whether they are inspired or not. Inspiration is for amateurs who can wait until the muses shower them with visions. Only then will the spineless dilettantes be stirred to action.
I find it irritating because to some extent it is true. I have repeated the same sentiments in the past, and will likely do so again. Discipline is required in any endeavour. Sometimes you have to sit down and get on with it even though it's the last thing you want to do. That doesn't stop it being a grind, but as I used to tell my daughter back when she was faced with finishing a school assignment: the work won't do itself. I imagine she rolled her eyes as much as I did on reading the director's tweet.
Much of the language around making things is romantic. For instance, if you are self-employed then you are freelance. It just sounds cool, doesn't it? A free lance. Master of your fate. Swashbuckling and independent. A masterless samurai wandering the back roads and slicing brigands from crown to crotch.
The reality is somewhat different.
Different people have different ideas of what makes you a pro. It could simply be an attitude of taking pride in doing a good job regardless of the circumstances. It could be getting published by a proper publisher (whatever that means). It could be getting paid to do the thing full time. It could be getting paid to do the thing full time and earning a living wage. It could be being really good at something despite not being rewarded financially, and it could be a whole jumble of amorphous attitudes that change from week to week.
Very few creative people earn a living solely from making their art. Even fewer do so over the entire arc of a career. You may find that sometimes you are a pro and sometimes you are not. You are an amateur. Or you are a pro who is between projects. You are available for work but no one wants your pitch. You might be 46% pro for a while or 32% amateur. Maybe a large percentage is taken up with caring for children or a relative. Sometimes you are lost in a borderless no man's land unsure of where you stand on the pro/amateur axis. It is a little silly to put a label on yourself when your circumstances are subject to changes outside your control.
My own pro status has varied over the years. The times when I have undoubtedly been pro have been when I have done work-for-hire and earned a proper living from writing comics. Those were satisfying from a financial point of view, but the work itself was not my best. I didn't get into this to service IP. I am inspired to create my own things.
I consider myself a pro in so far as I have dedicated my professional life to getting very good at this particular medium. I take pride in meeting deadlines and being easy to work with. I am always trying to improve. It's fair to say that for the majority of my career I have earned part of a living (again on a sliding scale) while my wife has earned a whole one.
Without her I would not be doing this. Being freelance is precarious. Being a freelance cartoonist is much too precarious.
One person's professional is another person's hack. There is value in being an amateur (but I would be deeply offended if my work was called amateurish). I like to think I marry an amateur's passion with a professional's discipline. I take pride in calling myself a professional. It burnishes my self esteem. It describes aspects of my skill set and my attitude to work.
Outside of that I don't expect anyone but me cares.
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The Book Tour is out now in Spanish as Autor en Gira from Nuevo Nueve, translation by Lorenzo F. Diaz, and in Italian as L'autore incontra il suo pubblico (the Author meets his public?) from Edizion BD, translation by Simone Roberto. I politely ask to be referred to as l’acclamato fumettista from now on.
I have books out in the world, Kerry and the Knight of the Forest & the Eisner and Harvey nominated The Book Tour. Support my professional efforts through my store – digital comics – patreon or by leaving a positive review online.