To be a craftsman, you must be able to create high quality work reliably.
To be an artist, you must have something that you feel compelled to communicate.
Many artists — brilliant ones even — don’t have the skills necessary to be craftsmen. Many craftsmen — incredible ones — don’t have the insight or creativity necessary to be artists.
I’ve always been an artist when it comes to my writing, but I’ve also spent many years working diligently on developing my writing as a craft. I have the skills necessary to be a successful craftsmen writer, and I’ve recently struck out much more on my own, turning to self-publishing instead of the publishing industry. It’s a confusing place to be, because everything I see tells me that I need to apply my skills as a craftsman writer, pushing myself to write quickly and plentifully, if I want to be successful. But I only developed those skills so that I could more effectively communicate when I have things to say, and I have already spent twenty years saying many of the things I wanted to say. The easy things have been said. I want to say harder things now.
I could press myself to write every day. I could press myself to pump out high quality books. And they would probably say a lot of worthwhile things. But I didn’t get into this to be a craftsman. I got into writing to be an artist, and I will wait until I feel compelled to communicate something before wasting my energy on it.
I will wait to be called. Like Schmendrick in The Last Unicorn, I have true magic in me, and unlike him at the beginning, I have developed the ability to make the magic come to me when I call. But I choose to wait instead for it to call to me.
Maybe that’s the secret of true magicians — the magic will come when they call, but instead, they wait for it to call on them.
And with that said, I have a story about a magical village of squirrels to work on…