Less Art, More Commercialism?

Now I sound like a terrible Hollywood cliche, don't I? Don't do it the right way, sell it! Sell it hard!

Truthfully, that's the way to go. If you don't sell it, people don't read it, and the best art is about sharing and showing, right? Changing minds and attitudes?

Well, that's the theory, anyway.

Still, there's a fine line between art like ET, exploring the alienation of divorce, the escapism of a small boy running away from harsh reality, and art like Eragon. In a word... meaning.

If your meaningful art isn't going to sell, it doesn't matter.

And if your art that'll sell doesn't have meaning, it won't actually sell, hopefully, but even if it does... it doesn't matter either.

Great art is like Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments. That movie was the pinnacle of the Civil Rights Movement, really. Heston marched with King, you know. Not many remember it now. Heston led a boycott of Hollywood restaurants that were still discriminating.

He took Cecil B DeMille's epic and made it about racism, slavery, and bigotry. Listen to his impassioned speeches.... "What gives one man the right to own another?"

If he were another filmmaker, say one of the great message makers of our time, it would be an art film. One that would go on for about three hours, would go well at Sundance, and nobody would ever see.

But he mixed the commercialism of deMille with his own passion for the cause. That mixture did well, and may have changed minds. (I hope it did; his cause was certainly just)

That's my goal for myself. Something I can publish; something people will read; something with meaning.

Not too ambitious, huh?

I've forgotten who I sent my novel to last...

You ever get that feeling that the publishers aren't taking your novel seriously? I mean, really. That moment when you remember that your novel is in somebody's "slush pile" and you aren't really sure if you're safe to send it to another publisher? (simultaneous submissions are a good way to get yourself in trouble, kids)

Well, I'm there.

It's cool. I'm busy refining an earlier work to make it all fit together. I think I'm close to making it a more marketable piece (by bringing a conclusion to the personal half as well as the story half). And if I can get it into a marketable stage, I can send it out to another publisher and have two in the air at once.

Of course, it's not really a salable piece. I wrote it while in an overtly artistic mood. It's full of dark, noirish characters... almost a neo-noir dark fantasy, really. The main character is all masks and angles, if you get my meaning... not quite Bogey from The Maltese Falcon, and, in fact, he's kind of a deconstruction of the macho myth...

You see what I mean? And it's barely novel length, 70,000 words. Not nearly enough time to deconstruct anything! Let alone enough time to build a believable world. Or two, in this case.

So, given that it's not my most commercial piece, what should I work on? Stuff that moves me... or stuff I think I can sell?

Let's be honest with ourselves here. I work a day job. I chafe, sometimes, but I do stay ahead of the bills. But money... is a concern. I do have a mortgage. Also, if art exists only in a vacuum, unpublished, what good is it? It needs to be shared and understood and effect minds and hearts to be efficacious.

So, onward and upwards. More commercial works for me, and less artsy projects.

I'll discuss some of what that means later.