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.

Anecdotes not being data, and all.

All I'm hearing are anecdotes about people who worked and wrote a book.

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

I haven't quantified it but I'm reasonably sure that I'm well versed in artist bios, as I've read literally hundreds of them.

I could break down the broader issues of class, gender, race etc, and they all affect success and opportunity. However, the vast majority of artistic endeavors are not supported within the economy so artists find strategies to work in the margins of the culture. Excepting artists who have the means to not work (and they are the exception as you get deeper into the 20th century and 21st), this is consistent and the strategies are similar.

You mean the cool kind of creative.

Heh.

I will say that reading this and contemplating my writing while doing tech support is a bit of a bummer.

I think I'm with David here in not seeing Amanda Palmer's statement as such a terrible thing. It's not the right advice for everyone, but I don't think it's wildly objectionable, either. For many people, a successful career in art requires risk-taking, intense focus, and lots of time, and if you spend a good chunk of your time focusing on building a backup plan, that's necessarily less time you have for your art. There's a way to phrase that that isn't "Fuck Plan B!", but that's not Amanda Palmer's style. And, sure, I can see why her attitude rubs people the wrong way, but it doesn't for me.

I haven't quantified it but I'm reasonably sure that I'm well versed in artist bios, as I've read literally hundreds of them.

The biographies of the exceptional (and, really, and one who gets a bio is probably exceptional, or has gone the small press route for horn tooting) are as biased a dataset as the performance data from charter schools with a strong ability to select their students. It doesn't serve as an instruction manual for having a fulfilling creative life without starving to death or dying of preventable ailments in countries without proper health care.

For many people, a successful career in art requires risk-taking, intense focus, and lots of time, and if you spend a good chunk of your time focusing on building a backup plan, that's necessarily less time you have for your art.

Now you're being all reasonable and thoughtful and succinct.

The biographies of the exceptional (and, really, and one who gets a bio is probably exceptional, or has gone the small press route for horn tooting) are as biased a dataset

Yeah, but that's the dataset of Succeeded, so I don't think it's improper to draw inferences on How Best To Do It. It's like a sleezier Best Practices approach with more sex work and drug dealing. (at least for the musicians. The writers simply wrote porn for pay.)

The more I think about it, the more I think Sophia said the most important thing -- it's only risky to be an artist if you are lower-middle class or similar. If you're poor, you have nothing to lose, and if you are rich, you know people who can support you.

Yeah, but that's the dataset of Succeeded, so I don't think it's improper to draw inferences on How Best To Do It. It's like a sleezier Best Practices approach with more sex work and drug dealing. (at least for the musicians. The writers simply wrote porn for pay.)

Eh, that's the dataset of Exceeded. Not the same.

Or, rather, depends on how you define success. There are many people I would define as successful (Kristen, for example), who don't fit that pattern.