Hi, I honestly didn’t think I would do this… But here I am.
What do you think when you hear the word artist? Probably a musician, a painter, photographer, dancer… More in the audio-visual department I suppose. Why? Looking the question what type of artists there are you get a long list: “Some different types of art are animation, architecture, assemblage, calligraphy, ceramics, computer, Christian or religious, conceptual, artistic design, drawing, folk, graffiti, graphic, illuminated manuscript, illustration, mosaic, painting, performance, photography, sculpture, stained glass, tapestry, and video.” This is just to kind of give you an idea of why I am talking about this. It bothers me, I don’t like this… I really don’t. Each of those mentioned above have an industry attached to their name, this will make sense a bit later, yet, they are still considered art. The same goes for movies, right? Movies are mainstream, making billions upon billions of dollars, they are also art, more some than others, and the people involved in them are artists, right? Here’s a tweet that kind of tipped the scales in my decision to write this manifesto.:
https://twitter.com/Brandonwoelfel/status/1082087400099274754
Now… My question is as follows, when did writers/authors fall out of this category of artists? Why is writing not an art? Why is the writer not an artists? Are we taking books for granted? Are we taking writers for granted? Let me walk you through this a bit. There were multiple strikes by the screenwriter’s guild, with another one just barely avoided this past few years. My question is why? How can those that put the skeleton of a project together be treated in such a way that even to this day they are underpaid and overworked? Behind these masterpieces and these countless hours of entertainment you get every single day. From the writers in a TV station behind a show you’re watching cause you have nothing better to do, those that writer for YouTube channels, to writers that rip your heart out with some of the best TV/Movies/plays out there… To those that writer short stories and finally those that write books, the authors. Which 98% of them couldn’t live on the money they make from their sales books, because they the house they signed with ripped them off, scammed them, or simply wouldn’t pay them or tricked them into a horrible deal. To those that self-published and don’t usually get a chance. But all these people write and create some of your favorite stories… Those that are either talented or worked their asses off to become the wordsmiths they are in order to blow your mind. Those people that can create whole worlds that have endless interpretations, those people aren’t worth being called artists? How can people deny the fact that there’s an art in discourse, in writing, creating, thinking, imagining and mustering the power of putting all those feelings and thoughts into words isn’t an art and that writers aren’t artists themselves? Writing is as much a visual art as anything else. But we never really do consider them artists, do we? They are their own breed… Either amateurs or intellectuals… But never the artist… We have to change that. It’s unacceptable. We have sites that promote artistry but leave out writers and writings, poetry and plays. We auction paintings and photos, yet no one is auctioning for books. Authors have to sell their books for pennies or a dime, when we ask for 12-15 dollars a book, we look at the author like he is a fucking madman, because he is not well known, we don’t think of the hours put behind that work, the people that contributed to it, like an editor, proofreader, beta-readers, printing, publishing, those that designed the covers or paintings withing the book itself. Authors have to sacrifice 80 to 90% of the “income” from a single book, in order to pay others first, before getting anything for all that work. Playwrights spend countless days writing pieces, and don’t get paid until the play really becomes profitable or maybe never. Yet we don’t take any of that into consideration, because they’re not artists, they’re writers, they’re intellectuals or another species… And that their industry is full of snobs and if they’re intellectuals, they'‘re smart enough to find a way to make money (See? Told you it would make sense later). Unless you’re stupid lucky or dead, literature doesn’t really pay, neither in respect nor monetary. If you really want to become a successful writer, you must be a brilliant marketer and seller first, something no one really tells you. There are so many stories of author being rejected 20-40-100 times on their brilliant works or being accepted when they’re old and jaded, and have developed a mental illness that it becomes depressing, not really a success story.
One last thought… If the boundary delimition between something that is art and something that is not is the same across painters, photographers, musicians and writers, then writer and their writing is an art too. You can’t refer to photographers as artists and as writers as non-artists, because the only difference is the “value” and “importance” their work has. The medium is very much irrelevant.
Writers are artists and I want to push that forward, because there is no real argument against writers and their works not being seen as art. So let’s start doing that from now on. Thank you.
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