There’s a chance you’ve come across Carter Vail if you ever find yourself scrolling through Instagram reels, YouTube shorts, or the other short video platforms on the handful of social media sites that make up the modern internet.
He may be best-known for his goofy songs about eating coins, using karate against aliens, or protecting yourself from the Dirt Man, but his “real” songs have been in heavy rotation on my drive-time playlists.
He recently released a concise and honest how-to video for building a creative career. It’s tailored toward musicians, but most of the points he makes can be easily translated to other artistic endeavors.
Watch below, or click through to YouTube.
The List
- Find an *art of your choice* community
- Become indispensable to that community
- Cash in favors to make *your kind of art* ferociously
- Make people care
- Stay in the game
Thoughts
It’s interesting to note right away that this list assumes art is a collaborative endeavor. It’s possible to be a solo singer-songwriter, but I think most people will agree that music is among the most collaborative of the arts, perhaps only behind TV and movies in the number of people who have to come together to make something.
Writers and painters are more likely to balk at this. Many of us are used to working alone. But even in the world of fiction, there are beta readers and writing groups and agents and editors and marketing people. You might find yourself writing for other media, for comics or RPGs or video games. As you progress and do more, chances are good that you’re going to have to interact with some or all of these people. No man is an island.
“Make people care” is innocuously simple at first glance, and immediately stands out as the hardest of these steps for most of us who have tried to do it. Today more than ever, there is an infinite abundance of art out there. It’s a struggle to be seen and connect.
I see the fifth step, “stay in the game,” as an extension of this. Rare is the artist who never thinks about giving up. Making people care takes time. You never know when (or if) your work will reach the right set of eyeballs. It may be tomorrow. It may be a decade from now. Do you give up or keep going, harder than ever?
As Carter says, “Stay in the game, make art, and put it out into the world.”
Words Deferred 