Author’s Note: Prior to submitting this draft for publication at The Last Estate I formally requested a permanent title/position. If you’re reading this it means that I am now the Manager of Recruiting, Retention, and Diversity & Inclusion. I know what the fuck I’m doing when it comes to art. 

 

Since before The Last Estate launched I have been occupying a questionable Davenport in the foyer, left alone mostly, stating upon arrival that I wanted no responsibility for anything. There have been no requests to help with chores or organizing the house tetherball matches. 

 

The previous remarks are intended to further establish the semi-fictional canon that we all live on the estate. The polite thing for me to do is to contribute. To assist in the collective labor and write something for the site. 

 

This column is a sufficient contribution due to my sphere of influence and ability to say what I mean regardless of how it makes people feel. Do I lack the fully functioning ability to understand how others perceive my actions or am I also an asshole? If the former I am owed grace due to my affliction. If the latter, don’t waste your time; I don’t care. No reasonable person of average or greater intelligence will dislike this column. They’re above all this. It’s just about the art for them. Art and managing their opiate addiction.

 

Decades as a successful artist and writer have taught me the things they don’t teach you at whatever MFA program or friend’s writing workshop you paid to attend. Things only found out when invited behind the golden curtain of success and popularity. Fortunately for you, who was smart enough to click the link and read, my generous nature compels me to share my knowledge with you – at zero monetary cost. 

 

The Trinity

 

There are only three reasons people get involved in art – to be more fuckable, lack of trade skills, or they suffer from mental illness. Anything else is a lie. A weakness. An act of cowardice by someone unable to face who they really are. Yes, I understand that you wish this was not the case. You wish this time and energy devoted to creating art,  socializing, and networking with these people was for a noble cause. You wish it was to purge your emotions or feel the primordial surge of creation – but right now we are only talking in truth.

 

One truth is that mental illness includes substance abuse and stupid political ideologies. The scene is the perfect place for addicts, whether you’re chasing the dirty shake n bake taste of crank or the pure high of absolute moral authority. If you include ideological references heavy enough for the like-minded to recognize, you’ll find a publisher. You can dive down the theoryhole of whichever flavor of authoritarian regime best aligns with your physiognomy. Maybe a utopian novel imagining the world if whatever greasy-meat eating country your ancestors were shat out of had totalitarian control of the globe.

 

These methods will help you get the approval of a very loyal fan base. In terms of this scene “fan base” is defined as 1 to 13 individuals who have claimed to enjoy your work. If you are already fuckable you should spin this momentum into earning $0 to $20 a month from a Patreon or Substack. Follow my advice and you will reach these breathtaking heights of recognition and validation. 

 

It begins with other people. Do whatever you can to make friends, collaborate, or otherwise insert yourself into the circle of other people in the scene. This increases the odds that you will be able to name drop them in the future, which becomes especially valuable if they end up dying. Suicides and overdoses are the best as it’ll be easy to really go in depth about their struggle and how you were witness to it. If you’re close enough to them you may even be able to get a whole piece published in one of the farm league publications where the hopefully-professional get their swings in. Once you’ve got that in your author bio your acceptance rate will start to rise and as the acceptance rates go up so does the follower count, which is really gonna be currency you need. 

 

Start by following people online. Like their posts, retweet their stories, and so on. Now you can’t be expected to actually read all of the tommyrot coming out and no one expects you to. They don’t either. That’s part of the beauty, you can write absolute shit and people will tell you that it’s great. They’re doing the same thing you are. Safest bet is to click the link to their work. This way if they’re tracking a view counter or something and you say “oh this was great” they won’t know you’re lying. They’ll assume you are because no one actually reads anything, but it’s an unspoken cultural thing. Never break the facade. Never show that you care about the clout. 

 

Still struggling to get your tweets doing numbers and no one is giving you back any validation? Throw in a little twist. Scroll halfway or more through their stories, picking out a sentence or two. It’s best if you can tell they felt proud and clever when they wrote it. One of those words or metaphors you can tell they wanted to put in despite the fact that it’s clunky and obvious. Quote this passage in your response. Now your value has increased across the board. Everyone who sees that will believe you are the rarest gem of all—a reader—and these people will do fucking anything to get one.

Being Fuckable

 

Fuckability has always been one of the most important parts of the creative world at all levels. At the mainstream heights there is Joyce Carol Oates who despite substantial literary talent is now mostly recognized as a snackable piece of trim. Slightly less well known is the scene’s own Jon Lindsey. A curly mopped surfer boy who wrote Body High (House of Vlad) and is so fuckable out of the gate that he managed to land an even more fuckable writer in Allie Rowbottom – who not only wrote the upcoming novel Aesthetica (Soho Press) but has also said that I am her “favorite Twitter personality”. As you can see, a little bit of flattery goes a long way and now the pair has nearly a full paragraph devoted to them in this piece. Hopefully they mention me again or retweet this article, although with them riding the line of legitimacy so closely I don’t blame them if they don’t. You have to pick the right people to be seen with and I am a bold choice.

 

We can’t all be Elizabeth Ellen (Hobart & SF/LD Books) or Daniel Eastman (Back Patio Press), so what are the Josh Shermans (blue checkmark) of the world supposed to do? Lean into your mental illness. There are those who will say this paragraph or even this entire article are nothing more than a try-hard referential clout chase poorly masked as humor. Name dropping for the purpose of promotion and the exploitation of vanity Google searches. Those people lack the tact needed to make it as an artist or writer. They let stupid, obvious things tumble out of their mouths like the coarse blasphemy of some ancient heathen. Their words, nothing more than fading echoes, near silent, against the grand weight of civilization’s march. 

 

Mental Illness

 

The first thing anyone learns about creative types is that they’re temperamental or otherwise annoying to be around and they suffer from mental illness at increased rates compared to the employed. They’re needy, self-absorbed, insufferable attention whores who for some reason think the bullshit they make that tickles their primate brain is something other people would want to see, much like a child who upon first learning to shit in the toilet proudly announces it and requests the entire family take audience of the waste they’ve expelled. You say “great job” and act impressed. They’ll keep making you look each time they take a shit. Again and again until they need greater levels of approval and expand their body of work.

 

Not everyone is fortunate enough to suffer from mental illness. It’s fine, walk the walk and talk the talk. No one knows if vague posts contemplating suicide are legitimate cries for help or branding. The big thing is that they all know the rules too. When they see you talking about how you “want to be cold forever” or are “tired of breathing” they’re more likely to engage with you because you might one day be the dead person they get to use for clout. Ultimately that’s what we all want. 

 

You can also dive into full blown substance abuse If suicide and depression aren’t your flavor. It can be expensive but it is another social scene where your fuckability opens doors. You’re a writer, you have no money, but there is always a way to get drugs. You either want it or you don’t. Real writers know that there’s no excuse for not being high. The type of drugs you use will directly impact the type of work you produce so choose wisely. Spend time crafting the aesthetic. Try to look a few steps ahead, ask yourself “what’s going to be the cool drug in two years?”. Look at social trends and what drugs other people are doing. Ideally you’ll be able to write a book about your struggles with the addiction as that drug is reaching peak popularity.  

 

If you’ve been raped or molested, great! This is the moment that terrible trauma finally pays off. As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse I can tell you there is nothing people’s ears perk up for more than those horror stories. Really squeeze what you can out of these topics, but tread carefully. Suicide often follows abuse so make sure you don’t go too deep into your own head or you may end up killing yourself before you’ve established a substantial audience (5+ regular readers). That would be a disappointment to everyone banking on the clout from your death. The key is to think about the community as a whole, not only yourself, which is counter to everything you’re about. If it was easy, everyone would do it.

 

Point of No Return

 

If we’ve come this far and you still don’t have a better understanding of the scene and how to thrive in the world of indie lit then there are really only two paths you can take. They’re drastic and problematic, but you suffer from mental illness so you can get away with pretty much anything short of physical violence or giving an honest Goodreads review. 

 

Option 1 – Start saying you’re trans. Note that I did not say be trans. You don’t have to be anything, you can just say it. Besides if you actually are trans you already know all this. The issue is that when you “go trans” you’re firmly putting yourself into the gender-stewed lane of the arts world. Your fuckability will rise instantly and you’ll even be able to gain some followers from the straight guys once you start using your cartoon girl profile picture.  If you’re unsure if you’re interacting with a trans member of the scene just give their work a quick glance. If more than half of it seems to feature gore, mutilation, or hyperviolence there is a statistical probability they are. This also applies to someone repeatedly mentioning being a dumb bimbo, cumdumpster, or empty headed slut – unless it’s Elle Nash (who once told me to edit one of my stories down to 1000 words, sending me into a spiral of self doubt that stopped me from writing for two years). Once you’ve changed your profile picture and started gore posting, the rest of our techniques become more impactful. The natural thing is to feel uncomfortable about co-opting a gender identity for personal gain. Or maybe you’re anti-trans. Ignore this. Your success is in front of you. Grab it. 

 

Option 2 – Be openly racist. Racism is a great tool for building a following. If you’re willing to drop some N-bombs or otherwise lean into reactionary politics there is a whole ecosystem of audience and profit at your fingertips. Sadly this path kind of nullifies the fuckability matrix. You’ll lose the audience initially but if you go deep enough and dark enough you can become a prominent figure amongst the fading miscellany of the Dark Enlightenment, pickup artists, domestic threats, and otherwise 8Chan adjacent segment of extremely online people. You’ll be able to repackage all the complaints your grandfather had about the Civil Rights Act into a barely cohesive narrative. Make it about masculinity and romanticizing your views as rebellious despite falling largely in line with exactly how you were raised. If you keep doubling down on your ideology you can eventually gain financial support from actual political players. Make sure you don’t do your mass shooting too soon or that you have enough traction behind your fan re-imagining of The Turner Diaries to significantly boost sales after your successful suicide by cop. Ask indie lit’s most recent murderer, Denver’s own Lyndon McLeod aka Roman McClay – I mean don’t ask literally, he’s dead, but hey you’d have never heard of him if he hadn’t killed all those people. Kept his eye on the prize. 

 

Do you need advice? Have questions about life, love, or the nature of reality? Email jake@last.estate and I’ll address them as soon as I can (depending on your follower count on Twitter & if you’ve retweeted the link to this article).