Taking Risks as an Artist

The other day, I was watching a reel of Jon Bernthal on Joe Rogan. In their conversation, Bernthal was talking about doing the movie Fury with Shia LeBeouf. At first, Bernthal thought that Shia was loud, annoying, in your face, a characterization of Shia that many who have worked with him have expressed as well.

However, Bernthal elaborated about Shia’s approach to the work. He ripped one of his teeth out because he felt his character would be missing a tooth. He cut his face underneath his eye to create a scar. He didn’t shower for a month so he’d feel the dirt and grime his character felt. Bernthal told Rogan: “What I found with working with him was that he was willing to risk it all for the work. And I wound up walking away with an enormous amount of respect for him.” This sentiment has been seen in Shia in many scenarios, most notably on the greatest episode of Hot Ones with Sean Evans that has ever been filmed.

I think any meaningful form of art requires a large amount of risk. In the release of Whalers last week, I have felt that deeply. Those that know me know I put a tremendous amount of myself into this novel. Am I Ethan Callahan? Certainly not, but at the same time, I worked through a lot of my own issues by creating this character.

Similarly, I put a lot of my job into the novel. Are the other characters in Whalers real — the teachers, the students? Again, no, but like Ethan, they are encapsulations of my experiences. There’s a little bit taken from here, a little bit taken from there, all put together to create the narrative and themes that I wish to deliver.

It feels a lot like I’m Dr. Frankenstein making the monster. I took Suzy’s arms, Michael’s legs, Frank’s torso, and Paul’s head to create a character. Are Suzy, Michael, Frank, or Paul that character? Not necessarily. But their parts are there to make the whole.

Despite this, nobody knows me like I do. I knew when releasing this novel that people would talk. Like I said in Chapter 13 of the novel, titled Reputation Ruiners: “Gossip ran rampant in the school systems. People liked to talk, but teachers liked to talk even more” (98).

“Did you see that Kyle feels this way about this thing?”

“Did you see that Kyle wrote about this person in his novel?”

“Oh my god, I can’t believe Kyle wrote about this!”

In an earlier blog post, I wrote about whether or not Ethan Callahan was just a grown up Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye. In the novel, Holden has an incredibly cynical attitude about the things around him. I wanted Ethan to work the same way. Where Ethan COULD see the good in things, he actively chooses not to, and projects those negative sentiments to the reader. He says things about schools, about himself, about the world that reflect this cynical point of view. Does that mean that author Kyle Farnworth feels this way about the world? Not necessarily. But I guess literacy just isn’t what it used to be.

I want to be clear. I knew this was going to happen. But again, back to Shia LeBeouf, I think it’s incredibly important to take risks as an artist. As a writer, I could have given you a happy go-lucky retelling of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, but where is the fun in that?

I can’t lie….it’s paying off. Check my Amazon rating. Right now, Whalers sits as the #1 Top New Release in Contemporary Fiction. It has 25 ratings with an average score of 4.7 out of 5 stars. Similarly, on Goodreads, it has an average rating of 4.78 out of 5 stars. People are loving the novel.

I have gained over 700 followers on Twitter since the book released. If you follow this link, you can find my account, currently sitting at 900 followers. Remember when I was blogging in October about only having 13 followers? So much for that.

Yet, despite this, I find it hard to be proud of myself. Just knowing that certain individuals are taking it the wrong way is enough to make me feel badly about it. Ethan says in that same chapter 13: “I cared a lot about what other people thought about me, especially at work” (99). I guess that part is true for me. I’ll admit that part wasn’t fictional.

However, I’m going to continue to come back to a message I got from someone supremely close to me. When they finished the novel, they sent me a text that read like this:

“A beautiful novel! An insightful critique on the education system and ourselves. It takes a real hero to expose themselves and tell their story to create change. Ethan and the system might be well intentioned, but sometimes the only way to move forward is admit you’re guilty and start over. Thank you for your courage. I loved the unique narration and voice. I think this will serve as an inspiration for many students, teachers, and anyone that reads it. I know it really moved me!”

I guess what some people call risky, others call brave. I think to be great, you need a little bit of both.