Real Artists Don't Starve: Timeless Strategies for Thriving in the New Creative Age by Jeff Goins

Author:Jeff Goins [Goins, Jeff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2017-06-06T04:00:00+00:00

THE RULE OF COLLABORATION

Beyoncé’s sixth studio album, Lemonade, was released on April 23, 2016, and credited seventy-two writers. When people learned about this, there was significant public backlash. One person on Twitter wrote, “Is this the time of year where we call Beyoncé a musical genius even though she has 50–100 writers and producers for each album?” Another said, “Beyoncé has FIFTEEN writers on one of her songs. But she’s a genius, they say.”

WE DON’T DO OUR BEST WORK ALONE.

This raises an important question: Do geniuses work alone? The implication in these comments is yes. We often believe groundbreaking creative work happens in isolation—a remote cabin in the woods, a secluded laboratory out in the middle of nowhere, a music studio in some dilapidated building in the inner city. But is this the way creativity really works?

We hold in our minds a certain picture of a professional artist as a lone creator, some solitary genius who executes a vision all by himself, slaving away at the work with only his thoughts and brilliance to keep him company. But this is a gross misunderstanding of how real artists get their work done. As creativity researcher Keith Sawyer says, “You cannot be creative alone. Isolated individuals are not creative. That’s not how creativity happens.”

When fans discovered how many collaborators Beyoncé had, the overall sentiment was that she was getting more credit than she deserved. Why? Because she didn’t write those songs all by herself. This is not an uncommon reaction. When we realize our favorite author or filmmaker didn’t create their masterwork alone, we are disappointed, maybe even disillusioned. There’s something about the story of the solitary genius we want to cling to, however misguided it may be. “That’s a really nice story,” Diana Glyer said. But such a picture of genius “robs writers and other creatives of the possibility of writing the way that writing or creating normally takes place, which is in community.”

Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo credits more than a hundred writers. Rihanna’s Anti credits more than thirty. Are these individuals not real artists? If we allow ourselves to accept the new definition of artist not as a lone genius but as a visionary who brings people and resources together, this creates opportunities for our work to flourish. The New Renaissance is not about working in isolation; it’s about finding more ways to collaborate with other like-minded creatives. Our success is closely related to our ability to work well with others.

This is the Rule of Collaboration, which says genius happens in groups. Starving Artists work alone, but Thriving Artists collaborate with others.

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