Waynet interviews Robertsloan2
A writer and artist explores his crafts with persistence
You are a very detailed writer, that writes very insightful and specific information judging by your Hubs and even your comments. How did you come to HubPages? Many Hubbers have a story to tell.
I would if I could remember it. I think a friend of mine had written an article. I followed the link, read it, surfed a few more, signed up and wrote my first Hubs.
What are your most favourite topics to write on and why?
How to Draw, Paint or Write. That's my favorite topic and I've got a huge rant behind why I am always doing nuts and bolts articles on creative topics.
Art is not something only a few miraculously Talented people can do, really well, first go without any practice. You don't need some sort of social nod from other people that you're Talented in order to learn. Learn the nuts and bolts. Once you're past the basics up into Intermediate level, that's when people will start saying "You're so Talented!" That usually comes at the point where they can recognize what you drew without reading the title.
It does take a learning curve. Some people get encouraged early on, most people get shut down so deep they're inhibited for life from any creative activity -- art, dance, music, writing, it's all "I'm not good enough." No one's good enough as a beginner. Everyone who's any good at these things used to be a beginner, though there's a showoff trick of learning something in your head before actually showing anyone what you did that can seem like you did it perfectly out of the blue.
Talent is wanting it enough to put in the time to learn how to do it, also enjoying it enough to put in the practice to get good at it. Spend enough time at anything you're physically capable of and you will get good at it. I don't do music, but I know the reason why is that I enjoy writing and drawing more than music.
I have a few other topics too. Life in general, frugality, ways of living. There are some topics that if I read a Hub on it, I have to write another one to reply. That can happen if I agree with the original Hub as often as if I disagree with it. Generally it's when I'm interested in the topic but the original Hub didn't cover something I thought was important about it.
Frugality is another big rant -- people think of it as self discipline, voluntary poverty, voluntary deprivation and Giving Up Things, it's a Sacrifice. I don't look at frugality that way. I think of it more as a game of getting the most enjoyment out of spending the least money. I cut out anything other people think I should want that I don't actually enjoy or need, so that I can get luxuries most people wouldn't think of getting and thoroughly enjoy them. I figure out what it is about something that makes me want it and then look at different ways of getting it, including whether I'd like it more if I made it myself and did it my way. To me frugality is knowing yourself and your priorities, living green is also living on the cheap and living well. There's no real need to sacrifice or be a martyr about it if you can enjoy life more with these lifestyle changes.
I do art supply reviews because I love art supplies and like to share information about what I've tried. That's where a lot of the money I save by frugality goes, having a budget for art supplies. It's another way to help beginners, when they start out and don't know what to get. A lot of it looks expensive and isn't -- sometimes the more expensive products turn out to cost less in the long run because they last longer or produce better results that can be sold. It's also about the only thing in my life where I pay attention to brand names because all the art supply manufacturers have proprietary formulas -- colored pencils from Derwent and those from Faber Castell behave very differently but can be used together. Everyone has favorites and their favorites vary, so I just try to provide as much information as I can rather than naming my personal favorites.
Where do you see yourself in 5 years time with your online ventures? (and that's including your excellent oil pastel site!)
Well, that's a great question! Right now I'm writing, studying art seriously, working on perfecting my craft across the whole range of things I do. In about four years I'll relocate to San Francisco and that's when I'll make a big push to become self supporting. I'm holding back on a lot of things like selling art until I get there, where I've got the markets out in the real world and physical access to them that I wouldn't in most places.
Most of America, you need a car in order to do anything or go anywhere. San Francisco, I didn't. This is true of some other cities too, but there are climate reasons the others aren't on my list. I need the one with the optimum physical climate, social climate and physical infrastructure to have any decent chance of becoming self supporting again. By then I should have several more websites going, plus get better at art and have some more blogs going too. I might have a lot more Hubs posted as well.
I used to be a street artist in New Orleans and I think I can make that work in San Francisco too, as well as getting into galleries and selling my novels. So when I get there, that's when I'll go full bore into monetizing everything. Till then, I think people will just get a lot of good free reading.
A year from then, I should be running a workshop teaching the Street Artist trade -- portraits and landmarks sold off the easel, not the drawing with chalk on the pavement street art. I'll also have done it enough to be able to put together the book "Street Sketching" with a 21st century version of how to get into that business and make it work. The rough draft will be the workshop notes for the Street Academy, the workshop series.
I'll take a group of people who are raw beginners with nothing more than the desire to become full time artists and train them up till they're at the journeyman level where tourists, people who aren't art experts, can recognize their loved ones and the cool place they visited and buy their art at a reasonable price. The workshop will culminate in a show, of course, with as much razzmatazz as I can give it. Some if not all of the workshop artists will be people who were homeless when they started. That's my paying it forward for people who helped me when I was homeless.
What motivates you to write?
What I believe is right. I'm passionate about all these topics. You wouldn't think so about a how to draw cute kittens or Christmas baubles article, but that's my shot at the idea that people can't create art for themselves. People can and do, whether they want to be full time artists or writers or not. I think my outlook on life goes into everything I write. It's sometimes radical, sometimes weird, usually optimistic and intensely passionate about the arts.
I'm sure it bores people to death if they'd rather watch sports on television than do creative things. My passions are someone else's banal tedium. But that's all right. I write for the people who like reading my articles, anyone else will surely find Hubs of their flavor.
You are involved in lots of writing projects including NanoWrimo, what advice would you give to other writers?
Write every day. Write lots. Write anything you care about. Don't treat it like some homework assignment that's got to be done perfectly and turned in for points. Treat it as a perk, like getting to goof off instead of doing something horrible that other people want you to waste your time at.
Write what you want to read, and it'll come out better than if you don't. Play to your strengths, they're all in the things you read all the time anyway. I learned to write How To because I realized half of the books I own are How To and a good 90% of those are on drawing, painting or writing -- so if I'm enjoying them that much, I may as well learn to write that style and do some.
Don't get overwhelmed by the learning curve. Date what you do so that you can see your progress and then get used to that little jolt of daily success, accomplishing something. I write better than I did before and not as well as I will. That will always be true no matter how good at it I get and it means an end to the pure frustration level of not being able to write what I want to. I get to a point with something where my worst efforts are tolerable and from there it's an easy glide.
Away from all the online stuff, What interests you? What do you do for fun?
Well, I paint and draw and read novels. I occasionally buy paintings and have a small but beautiful art collection, as well as a middling large ACEO collection -- trading card sized artwork is much easier to collect indefinitely without a museum sized house. I'm disabled and don't go out much. So I'd have to say my social life is online, other than spending time with my family. I'm teaching my granddaughter to paint and we share a common interest in dinosaurs and art.
I watch movies and especially nature documentaries on Netflix. I read a lot. I spend a lot of quality time with my cat, Ari. He slithers into my lap all the time no matter what I'm doing and purrs. You know you're loved if you're loved by a cat, he won't let you forget it.
Oh, and I sleep a lot. Ari has taught me to enjoy a good nap when I want one. Cats know how to live without stress, and I'm not stressing about anything right now. Just taking my time and building up to that big push for independence again. I'm happy living this timeless way -- I don't live by the clock at all any more, just the calendar.
I know you've participated in the HubChallenge, did this increase traffic or any earnings as a result and did it motivate you to write more detailed HubPages?
Hmm. I'm pretty sure it did increase traffic and earnings. It's a little hard to tell because I haven't sorted it out or quantified it. But I doubled my Hubs and it did raise my traffic by a lot. I think I'd probably get more income if I did more product related articles, but I don't have as much interest in the topics that are more lucrative because of my weird outlook on life.
Health stuff for example -- I can't give normal but lazy and overweight people advice on how to live. I know how to live around a condition that makes every physical activity take five times the body energy. I eat a diet that would turn anyone healthy into a diabetic and thrive on it. My activity levels measured objectively would turn anyone healthy into a flabby couch potato. Yet for me it's a lot of exercise and I push myself all the time.
Same with food -- I can't write about it because half of it I can't even eat stuff most people like. Too many allergies and sensitivities. I used to think I was just a fussy eater till I started tracking symptoms and meals. Yep. I'm someone who's got fibromyalgia and a typical set of digestive symptoms that really limit what I can eat. So only the things that won't hurt me taste good and it's bland yet unhealthy stuff if you're healthy.
On the money stuff, I'm still too much of a hippie to get into "make money for the sake of making money." A lot of the finance and money articles involve having enthusiasm about getting rich and I don't have that -- if I have enough to be comfortable, I don't care about it beyond that or have the motivation to get intense. My articles might save people money on some things but they're not going to motivate them to click on ads unless they happen to enjoy painting and drawing as much as I do.
Lastly, Tell us something about yourself that we would never guess in a million years.
I mentioned this earlier in connection with my future plans. I was homeless from 1997 through 2000 and spent 3 1/2 years in several shelters. I was physically disabled and incapable of working and I did not know that during those years.. I was in complete denial of physical disabilities including measurable skeletal distortion.
I didn't think it made a difference that my right leg is 3cm shorter than the left. No one had ever told me that was enough that I'd have got disability just for that, along with the fibromyalgia (then undiagnosed), the scoliosis (by itself not enough to be crippling but the fact was, I was crippled and couldn't work), the asthma and general weakness on my right (small) side. My right arm is an inch shorter too.
Clothes have never fit me because I'm about two sizes apart, left to right. They get designed for people who are the same size on both sides. Nothing in life was ever anywhere near as easy as it was for other people and I didn't know that. I thought I'd decided to become self employed rather than work for other people because I hated working for bad bosses and hated getting up early in the morning. I'm not a morning person and don't fit in socially in offices.
I wasn't aware how much of that was caused by the fact I can only walk a quarter the speed of anyone else my height. Or that my body language is distorted by the skeletal problems and by chronic fatigue and chronic pain. Yes. I literally did not know I was in pain because it was all the time. I was never without pain.
You hear people complain all the time about how their feet hurt or their back hurt. I did anyway. I'd assume they were in as much pain as I was, feel some heartfelt empathy and not get it that they're not as impaired. I had to learn to rate my physical pain by how much it impairs me because I lived with it all my life at levels that went up to the suicidal. Most people with chronic pain or chronic fatigue diseases will get misdiagnosed as being depressed because it's depressing being sick all the time and the symptoms are the same.
There's a great self test for whether you have depression or physical pain. If you take a pain pill and it goes down, it's not as bad, your mood improves, then odds are that was physical pain rather than emotional pain by itself. Aspirin does nothing to help depression. Antidepressants do nothing for fatigue or physical pain. Another big clue -- if sleeping it off always really helps, then it probably has something to do with fatigue. You might be depressed on top of that, but only after dealing with physical pain and fatigue can you even tell how much is emotional.
Stress makes fibromyalgia flare, it does that for many autoimmune diseases that have chronic pain/fatigue among their symptoms. So that makes people with those diseases seem to overreact to emotional stress, not be resilient enough to blow off a stressful encounter and get back on track. The difference is that I can resolve a conflict and feel perfectly at peace after a stressful encounter. I can win the argument and feel all self satisfied about that -- and I'll still pay for it with hours to days of resting up too weak to do anything else, let alone have any more arguments.
I found out that none of that had much of anything to do with my emotional moods and that when I got good maintenance pain medication, I got my mind back. I could think clearly, type fast and well, enjoy myself sitting still. My life may look dull from the outside with my sitting on the computer all day puttering with paint and looking out the window to draw what's there. But it's not. My life right now is better than it's ever been. When I get out to San Francisco in a few years and with a power chair and some other work arounds, see if I can do art and writing full time, it'll be even better yet.
People who know me online don't realize that I don't have a life offline -- or how much I enjoy my life despite these limits. I'm basically an optimist, the same cheerful guy you run into online. Just a lot less physical than you'd think.
|
