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A lovely reader emailed me asking me many questions on what it’s like to be a writer, author, artist. I said I simply MUST answer these questions out loud since typing them out in an email would be far too long and look, now we have a forty minute voice note. I mention
’s very extensive advice on the practical side of being a writer of which I have never experienced so I am very glad someone has laid it all out for us all! READ HERE.Another similarly themed voice note I did linked just below!
Here is a shortened email of what the reader sent in:
Here’s the lowdown: I'm a 21 year old writer from BC, living in Toronto, about to finish film school at TMU. I am, as you might expect a 21 year old artist to be, terrified.
Sometimes I harbour this guilt about being an artist, fearing I will always be broke or unknown. Although I’m still interested in Filmmaking, and probably always will be, currently I've circled back to my original dream of being an author. The day I came into the store and saw you, I needed some major inspiration and was feeling really down about my career. I read Happy Hour like a year and a half ago but picked it up again the week before I came into the store. Later, as I was on the phone with my therapist and recalled the seeming synchronicity of seeing an artist I admire and respect, doing what I hope to do but it feeling out of reach, she suggested I reach out to you with some of my questions about it your career and experience.
I know you are probably busy and feel free to not answer any of these intrusive questions but if you feel so inclined…here they are:
How do you feel being an author? What keeps you going, What groups or mentors have supported you, and how you keep this seeming guilt of being privileged enough to be an artist at bay (or even at all, maybe I'm being too presumptuous to assume you feel as I feel)Editor’s note: I asked her to clarify this and she wrote to say:
Sometimes I feel guilty for wanting to be an artist ( I grew up Irish Catholic so guilt is all I know). Often I feel very lucky to consider myself an artist with something to say but sometimes I look around at others with “practical” jobs, jobs that have a clear trajectory and security and benefits and I feel like i'm either wasting my time being a starved hungry artist and I should get real or I’m being some pretentious lazy person that just doesn’t want to work and thinks calling themselves an artist is a fun way to get out of the real world… I think the guilt comes from a part of me thinking art is frivolous…Not sure if thats just the nature of being an artist that I have to deal with or some weird internal tangle that I need to get out in therapy. Either way I’d love to hear your thoughts!
I also had some more practical questions that I was hoping to get some clarity on, like how you found a publisher or an agent? What you would do differently in your writing career were you to look back and make changes? What boundaries would you say are important to have about your art and selling it? What scenes would you venture into or stay away from? How do you keep up with life as a writer and what is the reality of being an author? What advice would you give someone emerging onto the scene?
I also think to just to add to what I said, if you are looking for any type of GLORY being a writer is just… Not for you. All my favourite writers are so UNSUNG! Either they had a few good years in the light when they were alive but are now lost to history, OR they died lost and in obscurity. Like when people came back to Jean Rhys in the 1960s and she was just like… You’re TOO LATE! The glamorous Maeve Brennan became houseless and lived in the New Yorker’s women’s bathroom!
Known-ness and any sort of recognition doesn’t feed you! Everyone writing on Substack Notes desperately wanting to be recognized as a writer, while I’m sitting here looking around being like you want… this????
Also, I would say to anyone who is like oh Marlowe, if you’re so down on it why don’t you just change careers…my response is… In any other industry if you received the same amount of institutional recognition you would have an increase in material support and stability. This just doesn’t happen in the same way if you are in an artistic field. I’m a little too far down the rabbit hole now that I have stubbornly stuck my heels in and will complain and complain about it until I see some CHANGE!
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