There is a paradox about the creative process that I’m wrestling with now. Well, now more than ever. Mid-life, adolescence, it’s all the same really. What am I here for/What’s the point? You know the score. Same as it ever was. It is that, essentially, there is a necessity to isolate, to go within, to be completely self-absorbed, in order for something to emerge that is authentically yours. It’s very narcissistic, it needs a capacity to navel-gaze, and a belief that the fluff you find there is something special, unique. The paradox is that, in order to be successful, you have to then embrace something very unpalatable to a narcissist: convention, tradition, rules, the mediocrity of other ordinary people with their mundane agendas, their commercial instincts, and their knowledge of what sells in the marketplace.

You have to communicate what you’ve come up with to others, according to “how things are done”. You have to step down from your grandiosity, your sense of specialness, and accept that you are just another wannabee artist/writer/singer/musician/poet/film-maker/actor and get in line: join the queue. Be judged, be evaluated. Risk hearing that you’re average, that you’re merely competent, that your precious idea/novel/song/project has been done before, is derivative, is boring. And you know what? It may well be. You have to expose yourself to that potentially annihilating experience to get steel in your spine, to learn about what other people value and are willing to pay for.
It’s a painful process for many, especially those with a good sense of revolt in their blood. I believe that a good proportion of drunks, especially in this country, are those who have given up on the second part of this process, can’t stomach it, and choose to play the role of misunderstood genius. They blame the system, their agent, their art college, the recording label, their parents, their ex-partner, anyone but themselves, comforting themselves with a self-indulgent bitter rant about their lot to anyone who will listen, before they fall off the bar stool.
In practically every art form, there are barriers to overcome that may appear to stifle originality, uniqueness, genius. The traditional consensus on how things are done in a particular art form is a very powerful force to contend with, and, most times, is heavy with a dreadful inertia. You can’t call yourself an artist unless you’ve been to art school, so they say. So often, such establishments and conventions are anathema to the anarchic spirit, and are populated with serried ranks of self-imposed gatekeepers whose job it is to say “no”, whether they are literary agents, A&R executives, trade unionists, TV executives, media buyers, gallery owners, publishers, or teachers.
Tracey Emin spent a lot of time in her bed in that isolated, painful state of being. But she had the bright idea of presenting it in My Bed - and now it is totemic. But in order for her to know how good an idea it was, she had to know about all the other good ideas that had happened in art before her, if only to inform herself about what conventions she was choosing to break.
I may come up with all sorts of original tunes when I’m singing in the shower in the morning, and think I’m the bee’s knees, but I have no musical skills to communicate them to anyone else. Sadly, there’s nowhere you can ring to leave a melody where someone will get back to you to buy it. (Is there an app for that?)
A film-maker told me the other day: “never underestimate how disinterested commissioning editors are in your idea.” In other words - self-interest is the rule, no one is ever going to reach out and make it easy for you, no one is ever going to respond to your need and be your knight or dame on a white charger coming to your rescue - unless there is something in it for them. Once you enter the business of selling your creativity, you have to accept your self-obsession is not unique in the world. And you have to give up the “tortured artist starving in the garret” mode, and do what is necessary to make your creativity pay.
Belly-button fuzz, that accrual of intimate detritus, the personal gunk made up of the stuff you need to protect you from the elements, is not remotely interesting to others unless it’s worked on and spun into something meaningful, put in some enlightening context, given the right frame. Skill and craft are required. You have to win the business people over. You have to get your hands dirty. You have to play the game.
The world, sadly, does not owe you a living.