Online magazine that publishes interviews and essays with artists and creative people on making work, money, and technology.
HN commenters offer it as an example of a good independent culture site and recommend interviews such as the one with Jack Rusher.
I'm a bit of two minds on whether you can do writing (or other such creative work) while holding a grueling day job. On the one hand there's the notion that writes have to write, e.g. as Bukowski explains in "Air and Light and Time and Space" (https://wordsfortheyear.com/2014/10/15/air-and-light-and-time-and-space-by-charles-bukowski/):
no baby, if you're going to create
you're going to create whether you work
16 hours a day in a coal mine
or
you're going to create in a small room with 3 children
while you're on
welfare,
you're going to create with part of your mind and your
body blown
away,
you're going to create blind
crippled
demented,
you're going to create with a cat crawling up your
back while
the whole city trembles in earthquakes, bombardment,
flood and fire.
baby, air and light and time and space
have nothing to do with it
and don't create anything
except maybe a longer life to find
new excuses
for.
OTOH, of course, there's the reality of finding the stamina to work on a creative endeavor totally unrelated to how squabble to earn your living. And, despite the commonly romaticized image, writers have to spend a lot of time honing their craft and works.
When I read about these seven writers I notice that most don't have kids and sometimes are inspired by they day job, rather than being hindered by it. Take the best example, Bud Smith (https://thecreativeindependent.com/people/bud-smith/):I get a sense that the stories…
While this is a super interesting post, and worth contemplating, I do not think it is a useful story for the majority of aspiring writers, who often are very good at thinking themselves into a creative block. (Aspiring writer being someone who wants to write, but isn't writing yet)
> Programs like NaNoWriMo mislead aspiring writers. "Write every day" is great advice, but the first 90% of writing a book is often not writing -- it's thinking/planning/researching. There are other golf clubs in that bag. Many writers only start "writing" once their ball is very nearly in the hole.
To use the author's analogy, NaNoWriMo is useful for encouraging the aspiring writer to actually show up tothe golf course or the rowboat, because most people who want to write have talked themselves out of it.
(I would be curious to learn more about the "many writers" claim.)
It's also worth considering how writing a book/post/whatever contributes to an overarching body of work. Two quotes come to mind:
“Every novelist spends their life writing the same story over and over.” Danielle Chelosky https://thecreativeindependent.com/people/writer-and-music-journalist-danielle-chelosky-on-the-reality-of-publishing-your-first-book/
“My subject matter doesn’t vary so much from book to book. Just the surface does. The settings, etc. I tend to write the same book over and over, or at least, I take the same subject I took last time out and refine it, or do a slightly different take on it,” Kazuo Ishiguro…
"After the concert, we started talking, and he complained that I played much slower than the original songs or pieces. He asked, “Why?” That made me think, “Why do I want to play much slower than before?” Because I wanted to hear the resonance. I want to have less notes and more spaces. Spaces, not silence. Space is resonant, is still ringing. I want to enjoy that resonance, to hear it growing, then the next sound, and the next note or harmony can come. That’s exactly what I want."
- Ryuichi Sakamoto, https://thecreativeindependent.com/people/ryuichi-sakamoto-on-how-your-work-changes-as-you-get-older/
You should try reading that essay. It seems quite insightful:
>I am arguably at my most intentional and mindful these days when I’m wearing away at the edges of an old iPhone–not because I’m returning the device to its granular natural state or because the phone has lost its use-value as a phone, but because it requires me to make space for thinking through what words like natural, functional, and reasonable mean when describing technical interfaces and environmental conditions.
https://thecreativeindependent.com/people/sand-in-the-gears/
> written from years of thinking on the subject
While I wholeheartedly agree about the importance of personal websites, this post did nothing for me. So many words and so little to add.
These texts are slightly related and did something more:
https://thecreativeindependent.com/people/laurel-schwulst-my-website-is-a-shifting-house-next-to-a-river-of-knowledge-what-could-yours-be/
http://luckysoap.com/statements/handmadeweb.html
http://art.teleportacia.org/observation/vernacular/ (don't miss part 2 and three)
Creative Independent: https://thecreativeindependent.com/
Sterogum: https://www.stereogum.com
Lots of little sites that come and go (not unlike the zines of yesteryear) such as GigGuide Taiwan: http://dead.gigguide.tw/articles.php
And I enjoy following some of the creative people who have good social media accounts that they run themselves. Gives fans an unmoderated window into what they are seeing/thinking/doing, something that was very difficult to experience 30 years ago.