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The vast majority of creators who have “made it” have done so because they had an incredible support system in place—often times receiving literal financial support from their spouses/family while they worked to get their foot in the door. Almost no one gets there on their own. https://twitter.com/DaveScheidt/status/1224794394173280258
I spent 6 years after graduating from college at day jobs while I tried to start my freelance career. I worked on my portfolio on nights and weekends, saved my paychecks meticulously, and still only felt secure in quitting my job because my husband was supportive and employed FT.
Even now, when I have to travel for work or end up in a bad deadline crunch, he’s the one who picks up the slack with caring for our dogs and household chores. Support from partners is a hugely important factor in a lot of creators’ success and ppl don’t talk about it enough imo.
Seeing some of the responses, I feel the need to clarify: My intention with this thread was not to upset OR to comfort people, but simply to highlight a societal challenge that exists for any creative who does not come from wealth. Most of us don't. We find support elsewhere.
I think it's important for folks who *have* found success to speak openly and transparently about the help they received along the way, bc for a lot of folks at the beginning stages of their careers, "taking too long" can feel like a personal failure rather than a structural one.
My intention here wasn't to be discouraging towards those who don't have supportive partners/friends/family but rather to lift the veil surrounding "successful independent creators"—because creative industries are full of folks who claim to be "self made" but really aren't.
There's this often peddled and commonly accepted bootstrap mentality within the arts that "if you work hard, you'll succeed" and there is certainly some truth to that idea—you of course need to work on your craft, but who gets more dedicated time in a day to do so? The wealthy.
And a big challenge for those of us who don't come from wealth is creating that dedicated time to work on our craft. Often, the way we accomplish that is by receiving support from the people closest to us—paying less rent/moving back home, having a partner do more chores, etc.
And yes, this means that if you don't have the option to move back in with your parents or a partner who will take care of cooking/cleaning while you work, you will have less time to dedicate to your craft and it will be a harder road for you. The point is, that isn't YOUR fault.
I saw a tweet a while ago that said "a lot of the things we think require a lot of courage actually just require a lot of money" and truer words have never been spoken—Pursuing an art degree? Money. Changing careers? Money. Attending/navigating industry events? Money.
Someone reminded me that I had tweeted this thread today and with that tweet about Lena Dunham selling GIRLS to HBO on a page and a half idea and zero character or plot descriptions beyond that, I feel like, it’s time to bump it
