Creative Pep Talk
011 - Choose Your Battles
(upbeat music) Hey y'all, just a quick heads up. The episode you're about to listen to is eight to 10 years old. Now, these episodes were intended to be evergreen, and I still believe there's a lot of good information in these early episodes, but I do wanna let you know that some of my ideas have evolved over time. Times have changed since we made these episodes, and ultimately, I'd like to think I've grown a lot as an artist and a human, and that these don't necessarily represent my best work or the best of the podcast. If you're new around here, I suggest starting with the most recent episode, or at least go back to around 300, and move forward from there. Enjoy the episode. (gentle music) (gentle music) All right, grab a coffee. It's time for the Creative PEP Talk podcast with Andy J. Miller. The feedback has been pouring in, and it's been really nice. I hate to be some, you know, obsesser over feedback and praise, and I try not to be that person, but it's good to know that people are using this resource 'cause if they weren't, then I wouldn't do it, just because that's what it's for. It's for other people, and so that's been nice, and I really appreciate it. Today, we're gonna talk about choosing your battles, and I felt like the actual words of that sound exactly like what I wanna talk about, but the phrase is not really what I mean. So what do I mean when I say choose your battles? Well, what I mean is every avenue, every path that you decide on taking in your art career, every one of those is going to be some kind of battle. Some of them very difficult, and some of them not as difficult. Some of them will really be battles that you're set up to win, and that you have the skills in the talent and all the pieces in your career to go down, and some of them are ones that are not the right path to go down, they're not the right battle to fight, and here's why I wanna talk about it. So Seth Godin has a book called The Dip, I think I've mentioned it on the podcast before, actually, and I love this idea because I think it's kind of an obvious observation, but I think often, especially in the visual art, in the world, we kind of don't really view life this way, or a career this way, and the dip, the idea is just generally that anything that's worth doing, that's worthwhile, has, it's like a castle with a moat around it, and the more worthwhile, or the more attractive the castle, the deeper and wider the moat, and the idea is that any type of thing that you wanna do out there, if it's really worthwhile doing, the people that are doing that thing actually go out of their way to make it more difficult for the competition to make ground, now especially to make it exclusive, that's kind of the bigger idea, is that once you break through the moat, once you get through the dip, you're actually a lot of help kind of comes your way and you're kind of accepted and into this kind of exclusive place, and you don't have to worry about breaking in anymore. So. - I'm a believer in the idea of dressing for the job you want, not the job you have, and I have applied this to my creative practice too, which means if you want professional results, you need to present online like a pro, and that means going beyond social media and having a professional website that reflects your style and looks legit. I rebuilt my site this year with Squarespace's Fluid Engine and was so happy with how easily I could build my vision without coding, that when they approached me to support the show, I jumped at the chance because I love and use this product. So go check it out, squarespace.com/peptalk to test it out for yourself, and when you're ready to launch your site use promo code PEPTALK, all one word, all caps for 10% off your first purchase. Thanks goes out to Squarespace for supporting the show and supporting creators all over the world. Hey, in case you don't know, we have a monthly live virtual meetup every last Monday of the month with supporters of the show from Patreon and Substack. We have so much fun on these calls and they are the warmest, most encouraging creatives that I have ever met. And we also talk real creative practice stuff. We have authors, illustrators, lettering artists, picture bookmakers, fine artists, musicians, and folks that work in video and film as well. And we have people that are just starting out, people super established in their creative careers and everything in between. For the rest of this year, we're gonna chat through our new journey of the true fan series exploring questions and ways to apply these ideas to your own creative practice so that you can leave 2024 stronger than you came in with more visibility, connection with your audience and sales. Sign up to whichever suits you best at either patreon.com/creativepeptalk or antijpizza.substack.com. And I hope to see you at this month's meetup. - So here's why I started thinking about this. I hear a lot of people talk about different things in the art world, different, when it comes to illustration things like, I wanna dabble in doing some book covers and I wanna do some editorial work, maybe I'll do a little bit of concept work sometimes and do some comics and I might do a little bit of gallery shows and blah, blah, blah, blah. And to me, from my experience, that sounds like you're saying, yeah, I really wanna get into like sports, you know? I might dabble in like the NBA or maybe I'll do some major league baseball sometimes and some years I might spend some time doing soccer. That's what it sounds like to me. Like visual art is like sports and all these fields are like completely different sports. And I think when you go even past that, you think about how you can't just, these are all these sections in the visual art world and other worlds too, music and everything, they're all separated into categories and I think it's, and they're all actually very difficult things to become prominent in and actually unless you really invest time and energy and you pick the battle and you fight it and you're intentional about it over a long period of time, you're not gonna be able to get in. You might score a lucky break here and there, but you're not gonna be able to really do very much work in those fields. You know, I think back to the sports metaphor, I feel like you shouldn't be thinking which sport even. You should be thinking which position on which sport for what team. Like that's what I think, that you need to go that far. And I think about how does, how does a basketball, an NBA player, how does a, how do they know that they're a power forward? You know? And how do they even know which team to be on? Well, they don't have all the decision to make on that, but they figured out over time what position they play by getting feedback. Now this is one of the most difficult things about being an independent artist is that your feedback is just, it's hard to come by. It's hard to get somebody to stop and be present with you and give you their time. And especially if they have relevant feedback, which means that they know what they're talking about, which means they're probably busy themselves. It's so difficult, but without that feedback, you know, I think these professional players, like they've developed over time their identity within these positions on the team. And those positions have come from coaches and playing a lot, but mainly from coaches and people around them, helping them understand what their strengths and weaknesses are and helping them get into the right position. And I think doing art is really similar in that it's not always easy to know which position you play, but I think, you know, unless you really boil down what it is you do and the thing you're really good at, you're not even gonna get on the team. You're not even gonna be able to play. And I think changing your views from Mike Dabbel and that, I like to do that and I'd like to pick up a little bit of this, just realizing all of these things, comics, editorial, book illustration, kids books, art galleries, products, selling products, all of these areas, all of these areas have giant moats built around them by the communities to keep people out from just dabbling and from taking some of the work away. So what do you have to do? You have to invest, investing implies time, you know, doing something over time. So like, you don't just cash in, you're gonna invest in an area, you're gonna get all the feedback you need, you're gonna try to make an educated decision on which area to pursue with extreme intentionality and longevity and persistence, and then you're gonna invest over time. And you're gonna start off knowing that it's gonna be tough, that the feedback initially that you're gonna get is not gonna be fantastic, that the reward or the cash in is probably not gonna be very big. The other thing that Seth Godin talks about in any area, you're gonna get a little bit of a boost, and that's, I think, maybe why people think they can dabble a little bit, is like, if you're an artist and you've never made a comic but you've made editorial work, you're gonna be better than most people that haven't done anything like that at comics. So when you start making them, you might get a little bit of attention. - The holidays are upon us, and finding the right gift for your kids, nieces and nephews and partner and family members can be super difficult, but it doesn't have to be. Go check out Uncommon Goods. Sophie and I were checking it out the other day, looking for gifts for our kids, to have a make your own storybook kit, which we love. There's this cardboard tool kit with a cardboard saw that's safe and connectors so you can build cool stuff and forts and whatnot. They also got these building connectors where you can connect sticks and make a fort. Mainly, I just like forts, but there's tons of cool creative gifts that will inspire your kids to go make stuff, but we could also easily have just bought stuff for each other or even ourselves. 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And that little boost, instead of getting that boost and then it dying down and then getting discouraged, just see that initial boost as, this is something I should invest my time in, but don't expect it to keep building because you have to invest and get really good at stuff. And so, what does the mo look like and what exactly am I talking about in like practical terms? I'm talking about, when it comes to comics, right? If you wanna be a comics artist, what you have to understand is that in every industry, there are a long list of unwritten rules. And the only way you get to know them is by reading commentary about the industry, is by going to the events, by spending time with the people, by reading as many comics as you can, understanding the history of the industry. Like, yeah, and that takes a long time and it's not something that just clicks, it's something that it's kind of, you have to get through osmosis of just soaking in this industry. And the reason you need to do that is because two things I think, one is I think it's nearly impossible to innovate by just doing your own thing. I think it's really important to really understand the rules and then break 'em and I think the reason is is because you might be doing something that you think I've never seen this before and it's really innovative, but you don't know that 20 years ago in that industry, that same thing already happened. Because if you've got thousands of people trying to do something innovative in a field, it's probably been done, right? So I think that first for innovation's sake, you really have to understand the rules. The other reason I think you really need to do that is because you don't understand what things are really off limits or really frowned upon. If you don't understand the history and the climate of the industry, you're gonna have a hard time communicating with its readers because you don't understand what's been done, what they really hate, what's a, you know, you might think some of the, I think some of the obvious things that you might do are things that might be really unattractive to that industry because they've become like caricatures of or they've become like cliches of the industry and you're not even realizing that you're being cliche. So those are the two reasons I think it's really important that you need to immerse yourself and really understand the industry before you jump in. So yeah, I think that the biggest thing that you need to do is you need to not haphazardly jump into different pursuits. I think it's really important to gather information, gather feedback, think and analyze the different possible directions you could go and then pick a few, pick like one or two and just decide over the next three years that these are the things I'm gonna do to get good at that thing and to break into that industry for real because the truth is all of these industries have very high walls trying to keep you out, trying to keep other people out. Because they don't, because first of all, every industry can't survive with anybody that on a whim wants to participate. And then I think also it makes the standard tie and I think that that's actually a good thing. So yeah, that's something to think about. Think about some of the industries that you've wanted to be at part in. I think one of the biggest parts of this is deciding which ones you don't wanna play in. I think that that's huge and the thing is it's not the ones that you know you don't wanna be in, that you don't wanna partake in, those are obvious. It's the ones that I think you have to really discern with are the ones that you wanna get in because you're jealous, that searing word. The things that you see other people doing and you just wanna do it because you see other people doing it. Like those are the ones I think you gotta get, you gotta listen to your intuition, you gotta get quiet, you gotta, this feedback and analysis stage before you start heading down a road, that's a giant deal and it takes a long time and it's hard. I just kinda passed over it but I think it's a very gut churning process and I think you have to get quiet, you have to get feedback, you have to get honest with yourself. Do I wanna make comics because when I read comics, I love it and I'm moved by it. I'm naturally good at making lots of pictures, I'm drawn to narrative, I like to write but I love to draw at the same time. I like to tell pictures with both and can together and I'm just passionate about doing this and I just have to do it. Kate Bingham and Bert, who's one of my favorite all time people, she's an illustrator, designer, teacher at, I think it's Portland State University, sorry if I'm getting that wrong. But she said something on her creative mornings talk that I thought was so brilliant and I loved it and it's that you shouldn't just do personal projects because you wanna do 'em or whatever. You shouldn't just do 'em half hazard, you should do them because I think she said you're gonna die if you don't do it. That's how badly you need to do it. And I think that when you choose one of these avenues, you have to start cultivating that feeling of which ones of these do I just have to follow and which ones of these, are there like impure reasons why I'm trying to go on a path because if they're impure, they're not really you. It's a lie, that's what the impurity is. It's a lie that you're telling yourself or other people are telling you and when you get down and it gets hard, you're gonna give up. The reason you have to pick the ones where you're, you just have to do them is because even when it's hard, you're gonna keep going and it's gonna be hard because there are giant walls keeping you out of every worthwhile thing. So yeah, that's, I think that, sorry, I got worked up, which is, I guess kind of the point, but I'm glad you're liking the podcast. Thanks for listening. I would so love it if right after this podcast, you would just go give it a review and rate it on iTunes because that's how other people find it and that's how we can get this thing out to more people. So I really appreciate it if you did that and keep listening and I'll keep pepping you up. Speak soon. (soft piano music) Hey y'all, one more quick thing. Earlier this year I rebuilt my website using Squarespace's new fluid engine and I was so pumped about how it turned out that I have been really thrilled to find as many ways to partner with them and tell you about what they can do and bring you discounts as possible. With social media going haywire, I think having a site that feels as unique as your creative work is essential to building trust with your target audience or your clients. I have had several clients point out how cohesive and fresh my site looks lately and if you wanna check that out and what I was able to do without any code, check out AndyJPizza.com. If you wanna test it out, go to squarespace.com/peptalk to test it out yourself and when you're ready to launch use promo code PEPTALK for 10% off your first purchase. Thanks Squarespace for supporting the show and for supporting creative people. Do you love hair raising allegedly true stories about the paranormal? Then some in the podcast scared to death. It's the popular horror series with more than 60 million downloads and is co-hosted by me, Dan Cummins. And me, Lindsey, co-host and also Dan's wife. Each week on scared to death, we share bone chilling tales from old books and creepy corners of the web and some submitted by our listeners, all designed to make you sleep with the lights on. Think you can handle the horror? Tune in to scared to death every Tuesday at the stroke of midnight to find out.