What Does Success in the Arts Look Like? - Interview XXV with Rachel Friedman
/Rachel Friedman - Writer, Brooklyn (NYC)
Rachel Friedman is the author of And Then We Grew Up: On Creativity, Potential, and the Imperfect Art of Adulthood and The Good Girl’s Guide to Getting Lost. Her writing has appeared in The Best Women’s Travel Writing, The New York Times, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and more. She lives in Brooklyn with her son.
You can find more about Rachel on her website> or on twitter>
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What are your thoughts on fame in the creative industry?
For me, the appealing part of fame is the money that would probably accompany it. Having enough money to work on whatever artistic project you want for the rest of your life is a tempting fantasy. There is a relationship between fame and talent but I don’t think it is a direct line from one to the other (at all) – so it doesn’t strike me as something one needs to validate the creative work. I also can’t imagine that desiring fame is a particularly satisfying motivator of creative work.
What is your approach to rejection as a part of success?
I think you have to be on nodding terms with rejection to endure in the arts. You don’t have to rebrand every rejection as some edifying experience – the way “fail up” culture would have you believe you should (in America, at least). It’s more useful, in my view, simply to learn how to sit with rejection without feeling as though you, or your work, is a failure. I was a serious musician as a kid and that was excellent training to become a writer because my skin was already somewhat thick. When I am ready to pitch a story, I make a list of publications I think would be a good home for it. I tailor the pitch to each pub, of course, but when I get a rejection, I cross it off and move down the list. I have learned to disentangle my ego from rejection enough to endure it.
Any thoughts on income and financial stability and success?
For most artists, making a living in the arts means financial instability. We each have to figure out our own risk tolerance when it comes to that instability. You learn this over time through experience. I ultimately realized as a freelance writer that I worked best when I had a steady paycheck. Twenties me was horrified by the idea of having to go into an office a few days a week. But thirties me realized I’d been indulging in a “starving artist” mythology that didn’t actually serve me as a writer. What served me was freeing up the psychic space to write that had previously been occupied worried about paying rent.
How do you define success in the creative industry?
Success is working on writing projects I care about and having my work resonate with the readers who find it.
Do you have role models for success and who are they?
I just wrote a book interviewing a group of former friends from Interlochen, an arts camp we all attended as kids. Those people become role models for me of the various ways one can balance art with the rest life (relationships, kids, paying the bills, etc.) At one point in my life, I would have given you a list of famous writer role models, but that list was more about comparison than aspiration. I used to spend an unproductive amount of time wishing my writing life looked a certain way in order for me to define it as “successful.”
Which advice on success would you give your 18-year-old self?
You are the wisdom you seek. I realize that sounds Yoda-y. I love advice. I am a total sucker for internet lists about famous writers’ routines or clickbait pieces that offer formulas for how to achieve X by doing Y. But what I wish I’d known at 18 is that I should focus less on one-size-fits-all advice and more on cultivating my own intuition. Each individual is, after all, the expert on designing her own fulfilling life.
Your thoughts on success in the arts and race/ gender
This question leads me back to the first one about fame. Success depends on a number of variables, including race, gender, and socioeconomics. We know this intellectually and yet we still don’t have enough transparency around this invisible privilege. We still persist in this ridiculous myth of the “self-made man.” There is no such thing.
