The Winner Is

The 6 AM Club

I have a New York magazine subscription, I get the print version too, perhaps my favorite subscription to date. To the point where I make sure I have the money each year to renew. My one splurge. With the subscription, you get all sorts of newsletters you can sign up for. There is one segment that changes constantly, called Night School. Here, there are courses on how to do or be something. One was how to be a New Yorker, or how to be a writer. I usually sign up to read them, out of pure enjoyment, and I like to learn. The most recent installment was How to Look at Art, by Jerry Saltz.

The course was great, but it prompted me to read his book How to Be an Artist. It was a great book, encouraging, and likely an important read for anyone who wants to be an artist. Who believes in their own ability to make it. If I were to suggest one chapter, though, it would be the one titled Define Success. Here, Saltz challenges the notion of what success is for artists. Saltz says that oftentimes when asking an artist what success is to them, they say it's money, freedom, or happiness, which he rejects.

“You want the truth? The best definition of success is time—the time to do your work. How are you supposed to make time if you don’t have money? You will work five days a week for a long time. This might make you depressed—resentful (moi), frustrated (me again), envious (hello). That’s the way it is. On Monday, you’ll have Friday on your mind. But you’re a sneaky, resourceful artist! Soon you’ll figure out a way to work only four days a week; you’ll start to be a little less depressed. More hopeful. After the weekend, you’ll be sad to leave it behind—but you’ll feel better for the good weekend of work. But your work is a life-and-death matter, so sooner or later you’ll scam your way into a job that needs you only three days a week. It might be working for a gallery, an artist, a museum; it might be a gig as a teacher, an art handler, a bookkeeper, a proofreader, whatever. A three-day-a-week job means four days off—four days to make your own art. See? You’ve achieved the first measure of success: time. Now get to work. Or give up your dreams and muster out. There’s the door.”

I put the whole quote because I think it's important. The truth is that art is not always made on the schedule we desire, but we can work towards it. In order to get to this point, there must be a conscious act where you make the time for yourself. Art is a conscious act of doing; the creation is not always conscious, but the creating is.

I used to spend most of my workday imagining, with great passion, all the things I could work on when I got home. It's inspiring, the restriction of doing your job, practically more than anything else. By the time I got home, I was always too tired, my room too messy, dinner needing to be made, movie nights to attend, bags to pack or unpack. Which is not an excuse or method of procrastination, simply put, life can often get in the way. I had no real stretch of time to do my work. The small pockets of time in between work and other things would be spent doing nothing of consequence. I was never doing anything for myself. I was always dreaming, never making.

I don't remember totally what prompted it, maybe I was just at my wits’ end about a lot of things. But Chloe and I got to talking about all the things we wished we had time to do. I needed to have some time to work, so I was going to get up early to work on some stuff the following morning, but I was going to miss our tea time together. Maybe she could join me, she said. She could also get up early and work on something. Slowly, as the conversation went on, it developed into a thing where we would get up early for a few days and try to do the things we wanted to do. Maybe we would do it every day, hold each other accountable. Maybe it could be something like a two-man club, the 6AM club.

The next day, at 6 AM, tired as can be, I clawed my way out of bed, and Chloé did too, and we worked. We made the time for ourselves. It can feel obvious when you read it, the morning feels like an expanse of creativity. It is, but it's also hard to capitalize on. It's tough when you have to go against the most human desire to sleep and begin your day hours ahead of schedule. But every afternoon after working all morning writing, or journaling, or editing photos. Planning Instagram posts, redoing websites, working on zines, writing anti-vlogs, submitting to contests, reading articles, and learning something new. There would always be a text from Chloe or me to the other, talking about how hard it was to get out of bed, but how rewarding it was to work on the things we loved. To carve out the time for ourselves, not just other people.

Now, I don't know if I'm here to tell you that the 6 AM Club is the only way. I know from trying to discover my own routine this past year, before the 6 AM club became a thing, that we can find time in many places. At night, during a lunch break, on weekends, and on holidays. I read Joan Didion's routine, and Delia Ephron and every other artist who ever divulged the secret to their craft, which was, of course, their time. It exists for most people. But I am saying you do indeed need to carve out time for yourself. The morning, unfortunately, seems to have the freshest thoughts when you have other places to be and things to do. It's worth trying. Similar to working out and eating right, there is something to the thing that is hardest to do.

The underlying piece of the puzzle that makes the whole 6 AM club thing possible is the belief that it's going to something worthwhile. That's an optimistic outlook, it seems, but it also seems to be the only real outlook someone should have in my book. A belief that what we are doing is not all for nothing. As an artist, that's one of the most important bets you'll ever make. I am still making that bet, I haven't gotten out of the woods yet, right? Even if I do, even if I skyrocket to stardom tomorrow, I will bet that my creative practice is worth something. But I am still working my way up. I am not the same person I was when I began my career as an artist, and I am not in the same spot. When I turn around and look back at everything I have done, I am quite a way away from where I started in 2019, or even in 2015 when I moved to New York. It doesn't always feel that way, it doesn't always feel like I am making progress, but every time I recount all the things I've done and lived through and survived and thrived doing, I think, well, the list isn't very long, but it's there. That's something to celebrate.

I bet, given everything that's probably happened in your life, and the disadvantages and poorly timed parts, you're farther along than you think.

Optimism is not saying you deserve the time to work for yourself. It’s saying the time isn't wasted, and it's going somewhere. Even if just to a few newsletter subscribers. Even to just a few Instagram followers. Maybe that's nothing to some, but it's something to you, and that's what matters. Each morning, I sit at my desk and journal to start my day about the life and thoughts I am living and having. That's not really important to anyone, but it's important to me, so I do it. Maybe some day I will look back and see the thread of all that happened to me, that made this possible. At the very core, there will be a true belief that I am making something worthwhile because I want to make it. The 6 AM club is a manifestation of that belief. To show up, to say what I need to say, make what I need to make.

You deserve that time too; you deserve to have a belief that this isn't all for nothing. Optimism is sometimes viewed as naive and dumb. To constantly be greeted with disappointment. However, I don't think that's true; I actually believe that hope is the most important part of anything you do. Your life, your career, whatever it may be, there really is something to believe in and something to hope for. Sure, it's great if people believe in you, but everything feels a little better when you yourself believe that your art or your hobby or whatever you do, is important to you.

If you do anything with that time you carve out for yourself, I hope it sets in motion the belief that you are deserving of the life and career you desire. I hope you feel good after, the way my sister and I do. Maybe you have a roommate who will be your accountability partner. I hope your version of success is this: the time to do what you dream of doing. The 6 AM club isn't something like a running club or an actual club, but it's nice when someone else is doing it with you. If you set your alarm for 6 AM tomorrow, you'll know mine's set for it too. We can do it together. The time will be worth it, even if it doesn't feel like it yet.

I hope you understand the point that I am making. I would love it if the 6 AM club were for everyone, but not everyone has that time. However, there is likely a time when you can do or create, and I hope you take the chance for yourself, rather than, like me, dreaming of the chance arriving. It's not easy, this road, but it becomes easier when you make the opportunity for yourself. It can be life-changing for your career, but that's also not the point of setting that time. The point is doing it for your own sanity, to feel like the artist you are for a few hours before your day job. Being an artist sometimes feels like we are constantly working. A lot of the time, for someone else, but this chunk of time is for you and you only. I want everyone to have that, and to believe in those few hours when you are released from the expectations of becoming something and making something marketable or practical. I just want you to make something, anything. It often won't be a masterpiece, but that's not really the point either.

Whenever I start the 6 AM club, the first thing I listen to is The Winner Is, from the Little Miss Sunshine soundtrack. The song makes me feel like I am doing it, even if there are no tangible rewards at the moment for whatever I am making. The title is funny because in my head, there are no winners or losers in life, but in that moment, right as I begin, I do feel like I won something.