Real Artists Have Day Jobs (and Other Awesome Things They Don’t Teach You in School) is a collection of 52 luminous essays – in other words, this book contains 52 awesome moments to say, “Wow, this book really gets me.”
Sara Benincasa knows a thing or two about uncertainty, anxiety, and all those lovely little nightmares that come with being in your twenties. Even better, this isn’t a ‘self-help’ book so much as a ‘nobody knows what they’re doing and it’s okay’ book. Wisdom comes from experience, and Sara Benincasa has plenty to share.
In Real Artists Have Day Jobs, what you see is what you get. Really. Patton Oswalt gives it to you straight, right on the cover: “Honest, funny, and completely devoid of bullshit. You might not want to hear what’s in this book, but you probably need to.” While I agree with Oswalt’s assessment, I have to admit that by the time I finished the first page, I did want to hear everything in this book – because it is, like Oswalt said, “completely devoid of bullshit.”
Real Artists Have Day Jobs is also the title (and subject) of its first essay. That’s what initially drew me to reading it. For anyone who struggles to reconcile what they do with how they make their living, the author offers a loving, validating, swift kick in the pants. I needed to read this, and I feel safe in saying that you do, too.
While Sara will …show more content…
I’m sure we all have made this list, in our brains. I definitely do. For every talent we possess, there are at least ten things we are terrible at. It’s okay. “Do it anyway.” Everyone is imperfect. Making progress requires abandoning what you know and trying things that you’re “mostly okay at.” This book would not have been written if Sara had waited until she felt it would be good. She worried, like the rest of us. She panicked, like most of us. She did it anyway. And that’s how Sara Benincasa wrote Real Artists Have Day
Sara Benincasa knows a thing or two about uncertainty, anxiety, and all those lovely little nightmares that come with being in your twenties. Even better, this isn’t a ‘self-help’ book so much as a ‘nobody knows what they’re doing and it’s okay’ book. Wisdom comes from experience, and Sara Benincasa has plenty to share.
In Real Artists Have Day Jobs, what you see is what you get. Really. Patton Oswalt gives it to you straight, right on the cover: “Honest, funny, and completely devoid of bullshit. You might not want to hear what’s in this book, but you probably need to.” While I agree with Oswalt’s assessment, I have to admit that by the time I finished the first page, I did want to hear everything in this book – because it is, like Oswalt said, “completely devoid of bullshit.”
Real Artists Have Day Jobs is also the title (and subject) of its first essay. That’s what initially drew me to reading it. For anyone who struggles to reconcile what they do with how they make their living, the author offers a loving, validating, swift kick in the pants. I needed to read this, and I feel safe in saying that you do, too.
While Sara will …show more content…
I’m sure we all have made this list, in our brains. I definitely do. For every talent we possess, there are at least ten things we are terrible at. It’s okay. “Do it anyway.” Everyone is imperfect. Making progress requires abandoning what you know and trying things that you’re “mostly okay at.” This book would not have been written if Sara had waited until she felt it would be good. She worried, like the rest of us. She panicked, like most of us. She did it anyway. And that’s how Sara Benincasa wrote Real Artists Have Day