Ponder, ponder

[lithera]

Today has been the sort of day where you hit the ground running. Luckily, my boss also told me to get the hell out of here at 4 so I could get home in time to see the entirety of Game 7. If anyone wants to come over and watch me yell at the TV, feel free.

Anyway, my friend mizkit is funding a short story over here. It has gotten me to thinking (that I would really like to read this story for one) that I do have more disposable income than others I know and that I, had it been the same in times past, would have liked to have been a patron of an artist or four.

I ponder what that might look like now, really. For instance, would it work if I were to provide a certain amount of money a month to someone so they had to do less 'pay the bills' sorts of work and more 'write a novel' or 'take pretty pictures' or 'paint a canvas' or 'create crazy felt creatures' sort of work? I know a number of writers for whom novel writing /is/ pay the bills writing, though, so that doesn't entirely balance out.

I'm weird but it makes sense to me that I would be willing to do work to allow someone else to do what they do (at all or perhaps faster), which will ultimately entertain me (and everyone else in the audience) at some point.

Do I make any sense at all here?

Comments

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

You are making sense. And not all that weirdly, I don't think. And also, in responding to this I am not hitting you up for money. Just to make that clear. :)

For instance, would it work if I were to provide a certain amount of money a month to someone so they had to do less 'pay the bills' sorts of work and more 'write a novel' or 'take pretty pictures' or 'paint a canvas' or 'create crazy felt creatures' sort of work? I know a number of writers for whom novel writing /is/ pay the bills writing, though, so that doesn't entirely balance out.

In fact, patronage--whether it's from someone in a financial position to offer it or whether it's from, like, government arts funding--is very likely the only thing* that's ever going to put me in a position of being *able* to work on a novel without worrying about paying the bills. I have more than one project--my YA trilogy of which ANGLES is a part, and another more ambitious 8 book, two-part historical fantasy series which I'd want to write all at once so I could get the flow right--that I don't know if I'm ever going to *get* to. ANGLES can be wedged in, probably, but the other series? I'd need a bare minimum of a year to work on something like that, probably more like two, possibly three, and I'm profoundly dubious of ever opening up that much time where I don't have to constantly worry about money. So I think there could be a place for that kind of thing.

It seems to me that if someone were to become a patron in this day and age, she should still get some of the benefits of patronages of yore. Commissioned work would be part of that, I'd think (specific stories written to request? access to all commissioned work like the fundable thing I'm trying? I donno, it'd be something to think about!). Early readership would be too, I think (at least for a writer's patron). Certainly acknowledgments in all published works.

It's a pretty interesting thought, really. I mean, there must still be Patrons of the Arts in a big way, besides people handing over checks to build opera houses and things, but it's not something one *hears* about...

*Yeah, yeah, maybe someday I'll hit the NYT, but until then.

[lithera.livejournal.com]

Exactly. And for authors, it would be a bit more challenging. I'd never ask an author to write a story just for me. That would be silly and sort of defeat the point of the whole thing, which would be mostly to allow the artist to make smore of the things they're making already - just possibly faster. reading a story early would certainly be a possibly benefit. Though, I might ask a photographer to allow me a picture or two for my walls. I don't know.

It is an interesting thought. I've always thought that if I won the lottery, I'd do something like this large scale but maybe doing something like it small scale wouldn't be so bad, either.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

Well, as an author, my long-term idea would be "story for Lithera now & for an anthology later" so it'd be yours exclusively for a fair while, if you wanted it.

Y'know, I think that's how a lot of us think: that you have to do things big to do them at all. What an odd thought, actually, now that I've, er, thought about it. :)

[lithera.livejournal.com]

So, it doesn't have to be big but it would still have to be a worthwhile size or it wouldn't be worth doing. What is large enough to do it but not so large as to be unmanagable.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

Well, that depends on your finances, of course.

Coming, again, from *my* point of view (which is the only one I've got!), a comparatively small amount of money could make a difference. A couple hundred extra dollars a month would double my capacity to pay down any one given credit card/student loan, which in the longer term means financial solvency and (ideally) less need to worry about Writing For Money and more time to focus on projects that I might want to do but can't be certain of profitability.

That may be a too mercenary way for you to want to look at it, I don't know. Realistically, though, I don't think most artists could expect a patron (short of someone genuinely wealthy) to supplement their finances to a degree that would allow them to be entirely debt-free and artistry-driven. I mean, sure, it'd be great if somebody could give me a $1500/m stipend...but really, I suspect for a lot of us, a surprisingly small amount would make a /difference/.

[lithera.livejournal.com]

*chuckles* Well, one bill a month would be a decent way of looking at it, all told. The idea that someone could take on all of someone else's bills is a little crazy and venturing toward that whole winning the lottery scenario again.