To follow-up: a paying career as an artist is what you want, great. But it doesn't make you a better person, except inasmuch as you're personally happier (I assume).

You don't get the moral high ground for being a professional artist. And you don't get to lord it over those of us who squeeze in our creativity in the corners of our lives, sketching during teleconferences and scribbling outlines on the bus home.

Yeah, I have no problem privileging that as Better.

Better, how? And you know that's a direct slap in Jilli's face, right? And Amy? (And other Buffistas I'm forgetting in my ire, sorry, folks!) I mean Fuck Chatty Co-Worker and his Plan B. You don't know him, and he's my one big piece of anecdata. You don't have to care that you're shitting all over his work with your glib statement. (Seriously. You don't know him; you don't have to be nice about his selling out to make sure his family has health insurance.)

But you ARE shitting all over the talent and hard work of Jilli and Amy, because they are not Better.

Well done.

Here's the thing: I don't want to be a professional novelist. It's solo, grinding, stressful work, with a lot of attention paid to the business end of things. (And for the majority of writers, it doesn't even pay that well!) I like the thought that I can write in my off-hours and still pay my bills and do interesting work (! yes, interesting and sometimes creative work that is not writing fiction) for my full-time job.

I reject your priorities, David.

If being a full-time artist is important to you, that's great, go to it. But you do not get to impose your art-over-everything values on the rest of us. Because, as Steph says above, claiming living as a professional artist is better in some sort of absolute way is denigrating the majority of the world who don't have the time/opportunity/desire to do that.

Yeah, I have no problem privileging that as Better.

...Okay, I can't follow you there. Better in what way? To what end? Better at your art? Happier in your life? Compared to what? To starving in pursuit of your artistic goals? To working at a non-artistic job you hate and doing your art on the side? To working at a non-artistic job you love and doing your art on the side?

Yes, being able to pay your bills is better than not being able to pay your bills. And that may be related to the scope and success of your artistic career. But it doesn't make you a better artist, or a better person.

I am with Kate here.

Although, I think the take home is that advice needs to be tailored to the individual. Would I (and have I) advised students of mine with similar backgrounds to me, who I know quite well to go right to New York, contact the artists they have worked with here and Rochester, and try to get working-- Absolutely! If it doesn't work, you are out a couple of years that were probably fun-- it isn't going to negatively impact your chances of getting the kind of job I have! But if I don't know that person and/or they do not want my advice, they might need a plan B.

And you know that's a direct slap in Jilli's face, right?

That is a radical interpretation of the text.

Better in what way?

1. Making a living creating the work you want to do is better than:

2. Making a living doing work you dislike;

3. ..or Doing the work you like but not being able to support yourself.

That's all I said or meant. I didn't say anything about being a better person.

Jesus, no wonder everybody's getting bent out of shape and taking offense at Amanda Palmer.

Advocating a strategy is not an indictment of you if you take a different path.

It's certainly More Dramatic, but there's no way you can tell Brian it would be better if he wasn't a psychologist too, since you never asked him if he's happy with his voiceover work. Did you ask Dave, who only does voice work if he is happier, richer, having better sex than Brian? Doing better voices?

I can't possibly shout the word ARBITRARY loudly enough for this. You like it better, Hec, and I guess you're a failure for not managing it, but you judge you, and you don't have any idea what Brian or Dave want out of their creative pursuit.

You're not even supporting a Better, IMO right now.

1. Making a living creating the work you want to do is better than:

2. Making a living doing work you dislike;

3. ..or Doing the work you like but not being able to support yourself.

But you know there's a fourth option, right? Which is making a living doing work you like that does not happen to be art. Plenty of people enjoy both doing their art and also doing other fulfilling or interesting work.

Advocating a strategy is not an indictment of you if you take a different path.

Sure, but explicitly saying one path is better than another is coming perilously close to that indictment.

But it doesn't make you a better artist, or a better person.

I don't know why anybody's talking about being a better person.

It's not an ethos. It's not a judgement. It's a WAY to create an artistic career. One way. I happen to think it is a perfectly valid way - that is, privileging risk over security.

If you choose another way that doesn't make you a bad person. It doesn't make a successful artist a better person.

I just think you are more likely to succeed in an artistic career if you don't privilege security.

What do I mean by succeed? The ability to do your chosen work on your terms. You only have to be financially successful enough to do your work and juggle whatever else you have in your life.

Which is making a living doing work you like that does not happen to be art.

Of course - but we're talking about the particular problems of being an artist in a culture and economy that doesn't value the pursuit of art enough to support the artists.