From my first reading of Catcher in the Rye at the age of sixteen, I knew I wanted to be a writer. It was all I ever wanted, imagined, or fantasized about (girls aside). I shunned anything that had to do with business. Business was anathema. In my fantasy, real writers never became businessmen and neither would I. So in my late teens I began to write. I wrote and published some poetry, keeping myself afloat taking odd jobs delivering newspapers and driving airport shuttles. Eventually, to help pay the rent, I began to work as a freelance writer for a local music publication, which led to assignments with other publications. But this was no good. I was working as an entertainment journalist; my calling was to write literature, not to interview rock stars. Still, I continued. I eventually began writing for national magazines and interviewing even more prominent rock stars. This had to stop; my entire artist-self was being compromised. So, I made a stand, albeit a subconscious one. One evening when I was scheduled to interview the Rolling Stones, I fell asleep. I missed the interview. I figured that my tainted life as a music journalist was over. But I continued to receive writing assignments in spite of my faux pas and eventually moved from journalism to PR to production.

For years, in my mind there was no place for business or marketing in the writer’s universe, real writers weren’t business people, they were artists. Trouble was, I never thought to question my definition of an artist. Truth is, apart from doing the work, there is none. There is no writer’s lifestyle, or director’s lifestyle, real writers write, and director’s direct - that is their one directive, so to speak. I am amazed by the number of people who chose to live what they believe is the artist’s lifestyle, in order to avoid doing the work. That’s the ultimate in image manipulation. That is the “if I appear to be an artist, people will assume I am,” school of art.

Yes, I am a writer and a director but I am also a businessman and an entrepreneur. And, the real surprise? I didn’t have to make a choice between the businessman and the artist. They are both parts of who I am. I run a company, I write nonfiction books, and I write novels, plays and direct. None of it has anything to do with image or a preconceived “artist’s” lifestyle. What it has to do with is - the doing.

So, if you find yourself trapped in the web of the artist’s myth, save yourself some valuable time. Shatter the myth. Blaze your own path. Become an artist and, if so inclined, a successful entrepreneur and business person as well. Those who insist that in order to be an artist you have to dress, live, think, and create in a prescribed way, are trapped in the myth themselves. Forget about fashion. You are after substance. The bravest artists are trailblazers. They shatter the rules, destroy the stereotypes, and live life on their own terms. Forget about the artist’s myth. Trailblaze your own life.
Copyright © Anthony Mora 2008

For further information visit:
www.AnthonyMora.com

www.modernlovetheplay.com