Out of the rat race, into the arts scene

I am a writer and poet, who has been writing and performing with poetry for a while now. Unfortunately arts is not an easy world to survive in, to get rent and bills paid you need to be amongst the tiny minority that is really succesful. I am also not that interested in fame and lots of touring or so, my biggest love and passion and what I love most of all in life is just writing poetry, standing on stage reading my poems and talking to the audience.

Unfortunately I am also suffering heavily from OCD and anxiety disorder, as well as clinical depression. The stage is the one place where I manage to forget all those worries and feel totally liberated, as if I can totally spread my wings once I enter the stage. Writing and arts are my biggest passion of all, along with travel maybe but the latter is usually never a profession :) However, the office world is negatively influencing my mental health. The pressure of performing 8 hours a day while the OCD is consuming more and more time through the rituals it makes me perform and through panic attacks, make me totally exhausted at the end of the day and sometimes during most of the weekend too. My psychotherapist states I cannot handle a fulltime job and that my mental health is likely to not improve at all or even become worse if I continue to expose myself the the pace and pressure of the office world. Another problem is that I experience strong anxieties when surrounded by the same people too often ; a stark contrast with talking to strangers about arts, travelling, culture, politics, filosophy, ... I am not anti-social, but cannot handle being around the same people too often. The office world demands just that.

It would be great if I could focus myself on my arts entirely, because you can live at a slower pace, you can work at the hours you feel the inspiration and good spirit are there rather than being stuck to a fixed daily working schedule, and you can work more or less in solitude (and of course you have to perform but no two audiences are ever the same). It would not only increase motivation, it would also be beneficial for my mental health to live on a slower pace and have flexible hours of writing instead of fixed schedules to work with. A person satisfied with what he is doing and not over-exposed to the things that trigger his disorders, will be emotionally stronger and better coping with his problems (I already experienced that myself when I had the chance to take some time off -- the moment I returned to fulltime work my OCD and anxiety disorders went back to worse)

I realise making arts your work is not easy because a lot of artists hardly manage to pay their bills. Only the happy few live in luxury, the majority of artists live a very sobre life due to lack of incomes. And of all art forms, proze and literature are not the easiest neither (the target audience is a lot smaller than for musicians for example). Still I believe it has to be possible, but I don't know if it will be possible here in Europe.

A few people I met spent some years in countries such as India, Ecuador, Peru, Cambodia, ... doing nothing but arts. They had a publisher in Europe and thus were paid according to European standards, but while based in a country where the cost of life is lots lower. All they needed was a stable internet connection in order to get their new work sent to the publisher in time. They worked on their own tempo and were not bound by a fixed time schedule. I think this is just what I'd need to increase my quality of life a bit, live on slower pace in order to not suffer from my mental health issues as much as I do now, and dedicate most of my time to what I love most (which in its turn again increases your emotional strength -- something important in order to stand up again fastly when the OCD smacked you against the ground once again). I am just not sure where to start searching for that, but it is definitely something I am considering. I feel like I need to get out of the rat race before it will further break down my mental health, whereas if I could get out of that rat race and live more in harmony with myself, I could drastically increase my quality of life.

What I would need is a country where
a) cost of life is low enough that you don't need to publish only bestsellers but can do with selling just a decent number or books
b) residence permits being relatively easy to obtain (working permits would not be necessary as long as your publisher is in Europe and you send in your new work via the web)
c) people live on a slower pace than generally in Western Europe, spend more time outdoors socialising, living more in harmony with each other and with themselves
d) vibrant artistic scene

I don't need luxuries ; basic comfort is more than enough. No big accomodations needed neither, one person can do with a 30 - 40 square meters (with own toilet and shower though, as contamination OCD would make sharing an apartment impossible).

I must add that I feel very comfortable in Spain, where I am now. It is just the fulltime work, the rat race, the daily company of the same persons, that are negatively influencing my health. I don't want to lament that somebody with a certain psychological issue cannot work ; however I do have to be honest enough that I cannot just do any type of work without being at the cost of keeping my mental health in decent state. If I could get out of the rat race here in Spain, I'd be very happy to do so here. (one of the reasons why I moved to Spain was the vibrant artistic scene here)

I have lived in Turkey before and fell in a deep love with the country and with Middle Eastern culture in general. If I could settle in the Middle East and live and work in a tempo that my mental health can handle better, this would be great. I however fear this may be hard, the times when the cost of life was low and the rat race far away in the Middle East are more or less behind us ...

So which locations may be worth to look deeper into in case the situation isn't improving where I am now? Latin America? Asia? I'd be open for many things, since I also love discovering new cultures, new places. I'm lucky with that, moving in order to realise that aim of focussing on arts entirely would not be an issue. I would however like to know if the testimonies from the people I used to know who lived in places such as Peru, India, Ecuador, ... and lived off the writings they sent to their publisher in Europe, are exceptional cases of being lucky in realising that, or if the costs and bureaucracy of such countries indeed make it a realistic option.

Let me emphasise I am just trying to gain information, my bags are far from packed since I'm very happy in Spain. I am realistic though: I'll need to look for an alternative out of the rat race if I want to improve my quality of life and mental health.

I also suffer from deep depression, autism, OCD, ADHD, anxiety and what have you.
I have traveled and lived abroad with it for 3 years now. It's the best cure but after a while in a place it tends to come back. It's possible though, but keep in mind that living in developing countries is very different.
I guess you are from Spain or elsewhere in Europe?

Is your OCD about being clean or other things? If it's about cleanliness you better stick to Europe I guess, because the developing world is rather... dirty. Totally awesome though, I spent a year in central Java in Indonesia it might be what you are looking for. Vibrant art scene, big town but with ricefields within it, the cultural capital of Indonesia, I didn't have a recident permit though, but you can get visas for 6 months each and just renew it several times. Slow paced too. Dirt cheap you can rent a house for one year for 2000 dollars.

The best thing about living in developing countries with mental illness is that it puts things in perspective for you, as the mildest disorders simply don't exist there, so it's less pressure to go to therapy, eat pills etc. It gives you some perspective as well, if one night you are crying because you are scared to leave the house, there will be 100 other people around you crying because they can't afford to eat dinner that night...

Your question mainly seems to be about where you should go in escaping the rat race but there is the issue you barely touch on that must be resolved before you get there; How you can build your art into a paying career. This really should be your first question because unless you solve this, no amount of dreaming about your destination will get you anywhere. You don't have an art career so you won't be able to leave your day job behind.

I am not in that field but I would guess that it is extremely difficult to have a career in art where you can support yourself in any country. Photography often gets mentioned as a popular line of work where there are a lot of aspirants but where very few of them can earn an income that is considered significant. I would imagine that it is pretty much the same about art. If you're going to do this, you need to spend a lot of time and effort into making a career out of art and in the end it may not work for you at all. Sorry I can't provide specific advice on that but there is a regular who is an expat artist so she may post here when she comes by.

Can you flag this topic to this person?

Just FYI: I am developping an artistic career as in: performing regularly, having been interviewed in several magazines, ... But the thing is mainly that music and film are the forms of art that reach a wide audience, while literature and poetry mainly have a smaller dedicated following. If you sell 200 copies of a poetry booklet in a month, that's a huge success, but not enough usually to pay the bills in the average European country ; that same amount may be enough in a low-cost destination. That said, every coin has a flip side. Poetry reaches a smaller target audience but it is also easier to publish from a distance because all you need is an internet connection to get everything delivered to the publisher ; people who paint for example would need a lot more complex ways to deliver their work or would need to work physically close to the arts house that pays them. As a writer, you just need a working internet connection to get everything delivered to your publisher. That's the upside. The downside is that indeed the target audience is smaller than in some other art forms such as music or cinema.

Hi Cracked Pleasures,

Think I might be the expat artist mentioned by Alexander VI. I'm an American artist based in Asia & Europe.

You've got some challenging questions and they're some that creatives deal with every day. You mention finding the 'audience' for your work, publishers, etc. Most creatives start out their careers by thinking backwards: "I love to make art/poetry, but nobody's buying it!" whereas it should be more along the lines of, "What kinds of poetry/art are people buying?"

For example, I make paintings and prints and do art-focused travel-writing. Each of these have different audiences/collectors/publishers and require a different approach. My current publisher is 100% focused on Asia (btw he pays at or above market rate but it's still not great, even for SE Asia!)

Yes it's possible to work remotely with publishers from a lower-cost location; that's one of many reasons I'm currently based in Bangkok. (BUT the third world has its own sets of problems and challenges.) I first began making my art full-time while I lived in Cambodia, teaching photography to street kids with a volunteer project and working at a radio station for meager living expenses. Hurricane Bertha's right about the cleanliness factor; much of the 3rd world could set off OCD tendencies - i.e. I was ill with stomach problems during most of my 1.5 years in Cambodia.

If you want to work 100% on your art, then visas will be an issue in many of these countries. Tourist visa? Working visa? Education visa? But it's a trade-off: you'll be able to create opportunities not possible back home (though you won't have the same social safety nets as in Europe).

The publishing industry is falling apart, yet there are more opportunities for people than ever with a DIY entrepreneurial ethos. Traditional publishers are paying less than ever, but you can print/produce your own work in China/Hong Kong/Thailand and elsewhere - often at a much lower cost than in Europe.

Build your contacts back home and nurture them while you're away and expand them. As a native Spanish speaker (?) Latin America is a natural choice, but there's something about Asia that keeps a lot of us coming back...

Some funding ideas for creatives: http://Kickstarter.org and http://Indiegogo.com

Other good reads: http://ChrisGuillebeau.com (His Art & Money Guide features a few artists and creatives, including me)

Good Luck!

Hi,

Thanks for your feedback. I am trying to find a publisher via some connections who have published several books, and who may be able to do some good word for me. If that wouldn't work out, DIY is something I plan to read up about.

I am a Belgian expat in Spain, so no native Spanish speaker :( Nonetheless, Latin America attracts. Mainly Cuba attracts me heavily, but also to some extend Bolivia, Peru, maybe Ecuador (although I heard the cost of life there is no longer making it classifiable as a low budget destination)

My big love, culture-wise, is the Middle East. Bureaucracy and the fact that most Middle Eastern nations with a vibrant cultural scene (Turkey, Lebanon, Morocco, Israel, ...) are also getting more expensive, are however obstacles in realising the Middle Eastern dream (but I'm not giving up on it, obviously)