"Art" is a Four-Letter Word

Outcomes Are a Distraction

Stop trying to make capital-A “Art”.

Who am I to say that? Well, in a sense, nobody. And so are you. That’s the point. But more on that shortly.

To be a little more serious, who I am is a writer. I think, to some degree, and am told (to a more flattering degree), that I’m rather good at it. I’ve written and self-published one novel with a couple more in the pipeline for this year. I’ve heard that 99% of people who take up writing a novel fail to finish. So, I’ve got that going for me. Of course, now I’ve entered that rarified atmosphere where there is another top 1% of the 1% who actually make a comfortable full-time income off it. It’s fractal like most things, and the better you get, the better you realize you need to get. And that’s also the point.

The points thus far: you’re nobody and you need to get better. This is why I’m becoming increasingly opposed to the mindset that we are creating “art” as writers. It’s not down to the word or idea itself per se, but more of the mythology that’s accreted to it. I don’t have a brilliant idea for a word to replace “art” and if you are involved in the visual arts like painting and drawing and so on, I really don’t have any better ideas for terminology. So, the attitude and the mindset are what we should take a second look at, specifically some of the harms that come of thinking about the arts as some high calling that is inherently superior to other vocations.

Now, I’m not even claiming that it isn’t. I happen to think there is something very special about art. Near as I can tell it is the closest thing to the creative act that God engages in when making the world which we can actually undertake. Ay, there's the rub. I submit the following: if you consciously undertake to create transcendent artwork that elevates the collective human spirit across the ages and lives on in eternity, you’re going to fail miserably. Sure, there are probably exceptions, but it’s simply too big a task for the normal person to aim for.

That goes to the first harm. You are focused on the outcome and not the craft. On the results over which you have little direct control rather than the daily disciplines that are the only means by which we approach the timeless and deep wells of creative energy. No one ever became a saint praying once and going back to living their former life. The process of creating art is a process of transforming your character, one day at a time. Essentially everything good you can develop works in this way. We’ll limit the scope to “art” for now but think about extrapolating the principle out to other worthwhile endeavors.

To be more specific to writing, if you are focused on the effects that great writers create (and especially on their fame and notoriety once their creations are finished), rather than the small and hard-won techniques and skills they acquired to produce them, you will inevitably look on all your work as a failure. And measured against Shakespeare or Cormac McCarthy or Tolstoy, it is. But here we find a second harm: aspiring to compete with the greats without understanding the trials they went through to become what they are. You lose all sense of humility. I’ll just state it plainly as I can: it is not your task to set out to create something earth-shakingly transcendent. It’s your job to accurately assess your current abilities (humility) and endeavor to improve upon your weaknesses through attentive and careful practice.

Here’s the positive spin on things. If you do what I’ve said, start small, find your weaknesses and fortify them until they are strengths, focus your attention on what you can do today, and you do it for decades on end, for hours and hours and hours, with a gentle meekness in your heart and reverence for what is Good, True, and Beautiful, you will eventually make something that others regard as Great Literature almost by accident. At the very least it is a byproduct and not a goal. But I’m fairly convinced it’s not even a good thing to think about at all.

To that end, I’m going to close out with an even bigger kicker. I’m trying to be polemic here to make you think. To abolish whatever stronghold of snobbery remains in your life. That thing that is probably an unconscious excuse not to try. A rationalization to at least be tempted to denigrate the people in the arena, be they doing well or poorly. Said polemical supposition is that you likely don’t actually know what good art is and what it is ultimately for. I’m not saying I have it 100% figured out either but I’m learning some things.

Stated more specifically with regard to writing: Good books are popular. Now before everyone shows up at my door with pitchforks, of course there are exceptions. Let us not focus on those. There’s nothing you can do about it anyway, other than unearth those forgotten gems for later generations (a noble pursuit, I think). Popular does not automatically mean good, nor the reverse. But my understanding of writing and art shifted drastically when I finally understood that popular books are popular for a reason. They speak to people in some way. This can be done cheaply and to the detriment of the audience (I’m looking at you 50 Shades) or it can be done in a way that while flawed (nothing is perfect) ultimately enriches the lives of the readers (Harry Potter is an excellent case in point). If your first reaction to seeing that is to criticize Rowling’s admittedly weak prose, rather than affirm that she nearly single-handedly ignited a love of reading, imagination, and morality in generations of people who were essentially illiterate and rudderless prior to her, I suggest you reexamine that.

This is not a philistine argument against the classics. I plan to read the complete works of Shakespeare on repeat until I shuffle off the mortal coil to which Hamlet referred. (But also understand that Shakespeare survives because it is entertaining, not because English teachers hate their students).

And now, since we’ve reached the point where I have written that seemingly ugly word “entertainment”, maybe I’ll suggest that is a better word for what we do than “art”. The fundamental goal should be to entertain your reader. Or your viewer if you paint and so on. If you simply cannot abide that word, how about “inspire joy”? That does not mean a book cannot be challenging. House of Leaves looks nearly impossible to read from where I’m sitting. I haven’t read it, and I don’t know if I will. But many thousands of people have, and I tell you they would not invest the effort if it did not bring them joy. If it did not entertain them. All good books do this. The ideal is to have a mastery of the skill involved in writing combined with telling a compelling story that entertains and brings joy. But the latter wins every time.

And good stories speak to who we are. Those human universals of aspiration and love and hate and desire and courage and the impulse to play and everything in between. Nine times or more out of ten, the books us analytical types are given to scoff at, which occupy the bestseller lists, do this.

Storytelling is what we are doing in the end. And your main task is to hold the attention of the reader in a way that is pleasurable for them so you can tell them that story. If the story is true, it will change their life, if only in some small way. The skills like flowing prose, and beautiful metaphor, and whatever you wish to name are all vehicles for doing that more effectively. And the more people you can reach with those true stories, the bigger the impact, and the greater the staying power. And that is really all that the “Greats” have done. They mastered the communication of a moving story to one person, then two, then millions. At that point you have transcendent art on your hands.

But all you were trying to do was entertain somebody for a little while. It’s an act of service. And you can only do it one person, one exercise, one book, one day at a time.

So don’t worry about whether your work will change the world or outlast your life or any of that nonsense. It’s all pretentious silliness in the end. Figure out how to practice daily and master your craft in the service of the reader. God and other people will take care of the rest.

Now, if you’re a writer, forget about everything except the next word that will delight your reader and go write that. I wish you the best of luck. But if you work daily in this way, you won’t need it.