This seems to assume some really wishy washy people. People who can't make the big decision unless the alternative is starving to death. Which it isn't, but is sure amps up the creativity drama narrative if you indicate you don't have a skill to fall back on, and if this didn't work out you couldn't make furniture/be a doctor/program computers like those boring mundane not-rich normal people.

Hey, is it still a Plan B if it's other arts? I mean, if you're going to fall back on being a supermodel if you don't make it as an actor, or you're a successful actor with a rock band, say, do you still get starving artist points? Or do we have to absolutely and uniformly punish people for the very existence of alternatives that keep them out of the poorhouse?

When Malcolm Gladwell wrote about his 10,000 hours theory, he used the example of a writer whose wife supported him for five years while he learned how to be a writer.

So what happens if the wife also wants to be a writer? Who makes the hard choice about supporting the art of the other person?

Bullshit. If I could get Chatty to register here, I would. Then he could tell you about his Plan B and yet he's still achieved his dream of inking for Marvel.

To be blunt: My Plan B hasn't kept me from writing a book and being a role model to thousands of goths. Would I like to be able to support myself full-time with writing? Yes. But I have learned that living in uncertainty and poverty is more detrimental to my creativity than having a career that has a good salary and health benefits.

Didn't we once have a conversation in the music thread about rock musicians with (unexpected) PhDs? The guy I know personally was a pretty successful rock musician and frankly the music was his plan B - he wrote his dissertation in Roman History at Harvard while touring Europe with a rock band, but left the music world in favor of a tenure-track academic job. Does his success in (and preference for) a "straight" job negate his success as a rocker? (It could also be argued that in the modern employment environment, getting a PhD in the humanities is riskier than becoming a rock musician...)

Bullshit. If I could get Chatty to register here, I would. Then he could tell you about his Plan B and yet he's still achieved his dream of inking for Marvel.

Different things work for different people, but I think the principle holds. I'm sure it took him longer to achieve his goal, and I think generally the longer it takes and the older you get, the harder it is to achieve that goal.

So what happens if the wife also wants to be a writer? Who makes the hard choice about supporting the art of the other person?

That's between the people in the marriage. There are many instances of husbands supporting their wives writing careers, that was case was notable for the gender swap. Joyce Carol Oates' husband paid the bills for a long time.

Didn't we once have a conversation in the music thread about rock musicians with (unexpected) PhDs?

That is notable chiefly for its novelty. Though 3/4s of Queen had advanced science degrees, and the lead singer of The Blasters got a mathematics degree those are extremely rare exceptions.

I'm not saying you can't work full time and have a creative career. You can. But it's enough of an obstacle that it's going to less often lead to success.

Risk taking when you're young, when you're unburdened with other responsibilities, when you're willing live with insecurity - that is by far the most common way people build creative carers.

the most common way people build creative carers.

I'm assuming that creative careers don't include all creative people, just the crazy fame junkie ideal. Because there are people who write songs/movies/books as their primary job, and who went to school for all that, and got a nine to five. All songs aren't scribbled on a coked up supermodel's panties between acid trips.

There's an elevation of one tiny slice of "creative" here that's got some creaky values. The creative career I'd have wanted? You can tell I didn't got to school for it and then get day jobs doing it, because those people are so much better than me. If I'd decided to draw or die, they'd still be better than me. And they're not in some epic dramatic edgy lifestyle, just a nine to five they worked their way up the same way I worked my way up mine.

I'm assuming you don't mean creative like that, right? You mean the cool kind of creative.

You mean the cool kind of creative.

Damn if I'm not going to emoticon.

:D

You mean the cool kind of creative.

Well, I mostly know the memoirs and bios of rock musicians and writers. If you've read any writers' correspondence you'll see about 50% of it is begging for money from their friends and family. But I'm pretty intimate with the career paths of hundreds of musicians and bands, and the patterns are fairly consistent (depending on time, place, era and opportunity).

British bands of the sixties had a defacto patronage system called Art School, where they could be supported while they met interesting teachers with wild ideas and still have plenty of time to rehearse. That's one of the main reasons why so many bands came out of Britain it the sixties.

Matthew Weiner is cool, right? His wife supported him for years while he tried to get Mad Men sold.

Risk taking when you're young, when you're unburdened with other responsibilities, when you're willing live with insecurity - that is by far the most common way people build creative carers.

Need more math for that. And not fuzzy Gladwell pseudomath. Anecdotes not being data, and all.

Map it to starting socioeconomic class, gender, race, etc. Show me the money, as that horrible movie says.

Heh, Plei made me think of the common hip-hop trope of Plan B being drug-dealing. Not all musicians went to art school.