ego.
by phill
photo credit: rougerouge
Note: Two posts in one day and they’re both writer talk! You’d think I’d be busy actually writing rather than crapping on endlessly about this stuff, gees.
As is the nature of the origin of most of my blog posts, I’ve been having a chat to a few people recently about the presence of ego in writing. While doing that, I googled around to see if anyone else had anything to say on the subject, and found this brilliant page containing a short statement by Robert Anton Wilson. If you don’t like clicking links, the main point is summed up in the notion that in order to be a successful writer, you must necessarily believe that the things you have to say in your story are worth being heard. In a practical sense, you’ve got to think that the reader will put reading the words that you have printed on a page are more worthwhile than, say, going down to the shops or watching a film. Otherwise why would they ever read you?
Of course it’s never as simple as that; people read other people’s words for all sorts of reasons. Escapism, distraction, pure boredom, to impress others, the list goes on. However I think the main thrust of the argument is pretty much spot on. Writers, and artists of all types, must believe that what they are producing is good. It’s the bedrock from which great ideas spring from. If you start off thinking that the idea for a story that occurred to you after witnessing a car accident isn’t really that crash hot (pun fully intended), then how the heck is anyone else going to think it is? Looking at it this way, it may seem like the egotism of writers and artists is almost a bluff, and to be honest I think I’d agree with that. My personal opinion is that art in itself is worthless. Some pretty colours or phrases on a convenient media. It only obtains true worth when we assign significance to it; a common feeling or interpretation that pushes the piece into the meta. In this environment, the bluff becomes the belief that the idea that you’ve produced is worth something before society has a chance to validate this belief (and with that, I’ve just pushed forward the idea that art must be validated by society, and fuck it, I’m not apologising for that).
Right, I’m becoming tangential. Back to the beginning, I wanted to pose the question to any and all artists that visit this site: do you believe that what you produce is good? If so, do you think that others would share that belief? In essence, do you have what Wilson believes is the necessary ego to become a successful artist? Do you agree that it is indeed necessary? Hit up the comments, they’re nicely threaded now and you can subscribe to them, so there’s no reason not to get involved!
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Comments
I think you’re being very nice about what Wilson said. He isn’t just saying that you must think what you write is good, he’s almost promoting vanity, conceit, etc, and uses a few examples to “prove” that what he is saying is right.
I agree with the basic idea that you have to think what you’re writing is good enough for the world to see, if you want to get ahead. I don’t think that you need to get all Beethoven-y. Many successful (and unsuccessful) artists are like that, but not all. And I’m not even talking about the few (very, very few) Van Gogh types who make it big after they die. There are artists who are good, who receive recognition while alive, and who continue to be successful through their lifetimes, and still don’t end up being braggarts. The temptation may not even be there for some.
“They were shy, and meek, and timid; they had the humility that all religions preach; they had a realistic sense that they probably were no brighter or more important than anybody else. They had irony- and balance and pragmatism, and they were not fanatics. That is why they are not writing anymore.”
I’ve met people who fit this description. They still write and some of them publish.
This division of successful and unsuccessful writers into two personality types makes me very, very uncomfortable.
“… do you believe that what you produce is good? If so, do you think that others would share that belief?”
Sometimes. Not very often, but sometimes, though I often change my mind and feel disappointed about something I wrote a while back, even if it is “finished”.
I don’t know if others will think what I write is good until they say so, which is always a warm, sunshine-y feeling.
Let me assure you that by no means am I taking his words as gospel, it’s just that I’d never really thought about it in that way. There are loads of reasons why a huge ego might be detremental to writing, including, but not limited to: an inability to see that what you’ve written isn’t very good, a damaged ‘voice’ from not being able to consider other writer’s perspectives and styles, and a lack of motivation in pursuing anything but you’re own inflated sense of perfection. There’s no one way of being a successful writer, just as there’s no one way to be a succesful scientist, or a successful lover. It takes all sorts, and if it didn’t we’d all be working our dream job and going by the book. I know you know this, I’m just making sure you don’t think I’m an idiot for echoing his words d:
I’m also definitely against splitting up ‘writers’ as successful and unsuccesful using just two personality types. Hell no. There’s a wide and varied spectrum out there that cannot possibly be described by simply saying ego/no ego and leaving it at that (this is the same reason I hate those stupid introvert/judgemental/analytical blahdy blah personality tests out there–do we really need to compartmentalise that much?).
What didn’t really come out, now that I’m reading through it, is that I was looking at the advice that he gave mainly as encouragement for motivation. Having the smidgeon of ego to continue writing in the first place at all is definitely important. You need to believe in yourself! That self belief is something I struggle with, in that I’m never sure if what I’m writing is ever ‘good’. I look for validation in external parties; my peers (including yourself), internet communities (i.e. dA), very, _very_ occasionally friends, and Louise.
And as a side note, I hate going back to things I wrote and have deemed ‘finished’. I went back and read Toilet Paper a few weeks ago for maybe the 2nd time since I finished it and all the jazz happened and I felt disappointed with a few things.
Oh gosh, I’ve rambled for a bit. I’ll cut it off now before your head rolls off from boredom :P
Haha, okay. I was wondering why you chose that piece to talk about self-belief/self-worth in writers.
I agree with the quote, but with an addendum that, while you have to believe in yourself, your work and the necessity of what you have to say, you must also consciously recognize that you may quite possibly be the only person to share that view. The same goes for how the message is presented and told.
Yes, definitely. Writers and artists can’t exist in a vacuum, as far as publishing and such goes. If you’re writing for your own personal enjoyment and nothing else, then go nuts, write what you want to write and do whatever. But whether they accomplish contact to the ‘outside world’ via an agent, or by just keeping tabs on the industry and their audience, there has to be some awareness maintained by an author aspiring to be published.
Do you believe that what you produce is good? If so, do you think that others would share that belief?
Most of it, yes, because I will always keep working on a piece until I am satisfied. Or, alternately, I overwork it, and it ends up sucking, but no use obsessing.
Others have shared that belief, so I assume I have some talent and skill.
In essence, do you have what Wilson believes is the necessary ego to become a successful artist? Do you agree that it is indeed necessary?
His examples are awfully convenient and strategic, as Aditi pretty much covers.
I do think a certain measure of ego and vanity goes into making any artist successful, by which I don’t mean in the monetary sense necessarily, but simply accomplishing work that has some quality or greater effect. Van Gogh, as unsuccessful as he was, had enough vanity to decide he wanted to give up preaching for painting. I’ve known plenty of artists and a few writers as professors and friends, and I agree with her that most are not insufferable braggarts. But most have do some measure of vanity and some sensitivity towards their ego. You have to believe that whatever you have to say matters on some level. And yes, you may be humble and full of humility, but odds are if you are creating anything of lasting value, you have some measurable ego.
Yes, I believe that the “finished” writings I have are good, and are worth reading, and do provide something to those who read it, regardless of who they are. I’m guessing they will get it, in their own way. Down the road, once I manage to have enough works to have a retrospective, as random as it will be, and self-published (by myself or some family foundation) as it is likely to be, I am confident that some college student, some traveller, some housewife, some loner, lover, school skipping teenager, what have you, will find it, and will find value in it, and will find it good. And that will make two – myself, and the reader.
I haven’t published them yet, they are still in progress. These are the short stories.
Poetry, yes, I have produced poetry that I hope somehow, someday, reaches an audience that appreciates it. And yes, it’s more than good enough. This I am already confident in. I just don’t know how to market it, and honestly, I’m not real aggressive with it.
I suppose it’s apparent I have the ego, but only selectively. That probably does not qualify for success when it comes to the old school. But back then they could only afford one parchment per month and they really had to make that parchment count. Not that I make my work count less, but I can afford to stroke my muse a little more. Think about it in terms of latter works of greater artists back then; they faded out a little, because they could afford to stroke around a little bit, so those extra ideas saw daylight. Some were base hits, some were fouls. Sorry for the baseball analogy.
I’m not sure what it means to have “partial” ego. But that does not shake the confidence in the pieces that I know are good. However few they may be. But there will be more. And someday, there may be enough to fill a volume, even if that volume is a damned mish mash of writing styles instead of a novel. Hell, I’ve done it once already with work I already considered shaky just to get it off of my shoulders. Fuck the ego, that’s easy to cater to.
The nagging subconscious – now that’s something you need to cater to and get to sleep.
I think the problem with asking a question such as this, is that in most societies there’s a dim view taken of someone who thinks they are good at what they do (certainly in Australia, where ‘Tall Poppy Syndrome’ is a nationally recognised condition). It makes it difficult to separate the stigma of being an insufferably self-promoting, vain ‘artist’ from the simple act of being proud of what you produce.
I think there’s also a fine line between believing in yourself and believing that you are greater than others, and that line is sometimes hard to distinguish.
I think, as pretentious as I feel saying it, you have to be your own biggest supporter as well as your own biggest critic. I hardly do any artwork anymore, mainly because I know that I won’t be able to live up to my own standards.
So ego must be a major motivation in the creation of art, otherwise nothing would be created at all because we’d all be sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves.
It would also serve as a “thick skin”. With so many other people critiquing your work, if you have a heap of bad reviews but still go on to be considered a success, it can only be your ego that could force you to continue.
Not sure if I’ve actually answered your questions however. :/