success = papers not blowing away
My friend Natalie Wilson recently did a remarkable job of setting an enormous goal and meeting it almost to the date. At the beginning of the year she challenged herself to write an entire play (her first) in nine months. Using the extended metaphor of birth (which time and again works uncannily well) she started a blog ‘Birth of a Play(wright)‘ to track her gestation. It’s a testament to her tenacity and determination that she not only finished the play in time, but secured enough funding (and interest) to put up a reading with top notch broadway talent early in November.
And now she’s facing the question that haunts so many early career writers after a big premiere. “What next?” … Continue Reading
a very important point is made here. it is my humble opinion that the arts is riddled with far too many success whores and it can tend to drive quality into the ground. imagine beethoven’s output if he cared what people thought? we would have no late quartets, as they weren’t even commissioned. we probably wouldn’t have a ninth symphony. then imagine a musical world without these a part of the landscape. scary. there are so many examples of this being the case in centuries past. i wonder if this body of work really exists in the 20th/21st century – works that have received no earmarks of ‘success’ but that will so clearly be recognized as such, via the fortitude of merit alone, at a future date.
Thanks for this, Brian. Both for the buzz but more importantly for your thoughts. I’ve written another post in response (because I love the term “meta” and a blog post about a blog post about a blog post is just so very meta).
http://birthofaplaywright.blogspot.com/2010/11/dia-blog-on-success-vs-merit.html