Genius Is a Place, Not a Person

The Power of Creative Scenes & Where to Find Them

Note: This is an edited excerpt from my book Real Artists Don’t Starve, which is only 99 cents on Kindle this month (not available everywhere, sorry). Grab your copy here.

Some places have an “it” factor. There is just something special about them. We see this most obviously in historic sites such a Rome or Paris, where it is impossible to go far without coming across an incredible work of art or architecture. Other places serve as hotbeds for industry, attracting top talent from around the world, like the computer revolution did for California or Wall Street still does for New York.

It is undeniable that certain places carry with them an unfair advantage, an indelible offering the rest of the world can’t possibly compete with. And as humans, it’s only natural to want to find such places, to go where there are others just like us, where we can ourselves and belong to something bigger. And where, we hope, our work can thrive.

When Patti Smith was asked why she moved to New York in the 1970s, along with so many other young artists and musicians, she said, “It was cheap to live here, really cheap. There were so many of us, so many like minds.”

Finding “so many like minds” is a necessity to doing interesting creative work. You have to surround yourself with peers who will not only encourage you but challenge you to get better, to not settle for less than what you are capable of creating.

In her memoir Just Kids, Smith recounts instances of running into people like Jimi Hendrix and Andy Warhol and many others. These were not unique occurrences. They were just what it was like for anyone of that era to be part of that scene at that time. Where we live and who we surround ourselves with, in large part, determines who we become. Which is why we ought to be careful.

“The most impor­tant factor in the success of your career,” researcher Richard Florida once shared with me in an interview, “is where you choose to live.”

He’s right, of course, but most of us act in a way that contradicts this truth. We think talent more a feat of human ingenuity than a product of environment—in spite of overwhelming evidence suggesting the contrary.

“Genius,” travel writer Eric Weiner remarked in his study of the most creative places on earth, “is a place, not a person.” These places, sometimes called “creative clusters,” are where writers, artists, and creatives tend to flourish.

In the early twentieth century, Paris was such a place. It was inexpensive, tolerant toward alternative lifestyles, and full of inspiring people (to name a few: Pablo Picasso, Gertrude Stein, and James Joyce). These individuals got together and shared their work with one another. They met in cafes to discuss ideas, as the Impressionists had done fifty years before. And as the Inklings were doing in Oxford around that same time.

So, it’s 1921. And you’re a fledgling journalist from Chicago who wants to become a serious writer. What do you do? You follow the advice of a prominent author and board a ship bound for Paris to join the community of expats living there, embedding yourself into the scene, befriending some the leading lit­erary minds of the day.

Ernest Hemingway would later credit himself for his ascent to literary immortality, but it’s clear he profited from this move. Like him, we all want to believe in the myth of the self-made person. But the truth is without Paris, you do not get Hemingway. And with­out a scene, you do not get a creative genius.

Granted, not everyone can set sail for another continent or drive across the country to write the next great American novel. Most of us have bills to pay and commitments to keep, and we can’t just uproot ourselves for no “good” reason. Does this, then, mean we can’t fulfill our artistic potential? Not at all. Sometimes, the scenes we need most are the places we find ourselves.

Because for every Hemingway in Paris, there’s a Brontë in Haworth.

In the mid-­nineteenth century, Haworth was a small town in northern England, described by one writer as “a dirty village of weav­ers’ cottages, where death came early.” It was a bleak place with few trees and constant wind, and the Brontë family called it home.

Patrick Brontë was an ambitious young minister from Ireland who had brought his family to Haworth to open a local parish. There were six children in total: five girls—Maria, Elizabeth, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne—and a boy named Branwell.

It was a hard life. Brontë’s wife died in 1821 when the children were all under the age of seven. Three years later, the girls were sent to school, which ended up being a horrific and abu­sive experience. The eldest, Maria, was sent home at eleven with tuberculosis and died. The same fate visited Elizabeth later that year.

Brontë then removed his three remaining daughters from the school and brought them all home, where he continued their education alongside their brother.

During their studies, the siblings memorized Bible passages and studied grammar, geography, and history. Reverend Brontë read his children classic works such as Shakespeare’s plays and Milton’s Paradise Lost. The bookshelves were filled with Romantic literature and poetry, and the children absorbed it all.

Once when returning from a trip, the reverend brought home a set of toy soldiers for the children to play with. The four siblings took the small figures and invented an imaginary kingdom of their own, acting out plays in a made-­up world. They drew maps and wrote stories, poems, and histories to go along with their fantasy land.

Storytelling was the Brontë children’s way of coping with an otherwise harsh world, and it would eventually pay off.

As the children grew, the girls pursued short-­lived careers as teachers and governesses but always ended up back home. They just couldn’t seem to escape Haworth for long.

One day in 1845, Charlotte found a hidden notebook of poems by Emily. Flipping through the book, she found verses with a surprising level of skill that stirred her heart “like the sound of a trumpet.” Shortly after, Anne shared some poetry of her own, and it wasn’t long before all three sisters agreed to submit a book of poems for publication.

The book was published in May of 1846 under male pseudonyms but sold only two copies. Still, they wondered, could they make enough money from writing to support themselves? It was a nearly impossible dream for a handful of unmarried women living in nineteenth century England. But they were curious enough to try, and sometimes that’s all you need to make the impossible happen.

Two months after publishing their poems, the three young women each submitted for publication a novel they’d written. The two from Anne and Emily were accepted, but Charlotte’s was turned down seven different times.

On the sev­enth attempt, the publisher asked if she had anything else. She did: a story about a simple English woman not unlike herself called Jane Eyre. The other two books, which Anne and Emily paid to publish, were Agnes Grey and Wuthering Heights.

The Brontës did not have to move to another city to find success. If anything, they did the opposite of what Hemingway would attempt some eighty or so years later. Nonetheless, these women didn’t wait for opportunity. They sought it out, persevered in spite of failure, and made their dreams come true. But how?

They had no special advantages. No network, no scene. And yet, their work still endures today. Where, then, did the Brontë sisters come from?

They came from Haworth, of course, a town so small that the young women were forced to cling to one another, sharing stories with each other on a daily basis, encouraging and critiquing one another’s work.

The sisters had each other, and that wasn’t nothing. Whatever opportunity they lacked, they created for themselves. Over the years, they accumulated thousands of hours of practice and millions of words written. Their success wasn’t by any means a given, but with hard work and persistence, it became a possibility.

For years, I longed to be a writer but felt frustrated by what felt like a lack of opportunity. It was easy in the early 2000s to look at my peers living in LA and New York and wonder what my life might have been had I ended up in those places.

Soon, though, I saw what was available right where I was and began to embrace my place, noticing how many authors, bloggers, and entrepreneurs were emerging from my small but growing city. Maybe opportunity did exist, and I just lacked the vision to see it.

Curious if I could connect with some of these people who were “making it,” I started showing up in coffee shops where I knew other writers were hanging out. I attended meet-ups and happy hours where digital entrepreneurs and social media marketers were congregating. And I befriended them.

I wasn’t sure these were my people, but they were doing interesting work, and I wanted to learn more. The more I engaged with this growing scene, the more I became a part of it, and the more at home I felt.

Soon, the resulting network of friends and acquaintances that came from these connections helped me succeed first as a blogger, then as an author, and eventually as an entrepreneur. Through this blending of place and people, I learned that a scene was already available to me. All I had to do was play my part.

Hemingway once described Paris as “a moveable feast,” something more than a place, an idea. If you understood this, he reasoned, you could take it with you wherever you went.

If you’ve ever been somewhere like that, maybe even Paris itself, you know how deeply a place can embed itself into your psyche. Historically, creative work has been contingent on where a person lives, but increasingly that’s becoming less important.

Scenes exist all around us in a variety of forms. There are communities and spaces we can join, places where we may feel not so alone. But these places, wherever we encounter them, still require action on our part. We must move in some way. Whether across the room or around the globe, a willingness to step out of one’s comfort zone is essential to finding a place and a community that will help you thrive.

To begin, try putting yourself in places where the work you want to do is already happening.

Then, show up and be seen. Make yourself known without being obnoxious. Persistence and generosity are key. Yes, go to that coffee shop or confer­ence. Join the community of creatives who want to help each other. But don’t stop there. Become part of the scene. Find others who can help you—and who also need your help.

And then, help them. Make a contribution. Offer your services to someone in the scene who needs them. Do something to stand out from everyone else who is waiting to be noticed.

“Papa” did not just hunt down the most famous authors of his time and pick their brains. He became their friend and helped his heroes and mentors however he could—from teaching Ezra Pound to box to editing a literary magazine for Ford Maddox Ford to assisting Gertrude Stein in getting published.

Success in any endeavor is contingent on the scenes and net­works we are a part of and the contributions we make. Sure, you still have to show up and share something. But you also need to build a network of peers by giving more than you take.

Don’t just connect with others but connect them to one another. As you make these connections and contributions, your relationships will take on a new quality, one where you can bring them with you wherever you go. It becomes a moveable feast. Just as the Brontes did, you can transform your place, wherever it is, into something powerful.

When you can’t find the next “it” place, you just might have to create it.

For more on this subject, check out the following books:

Just Kids by Patti Smith

The Geography of Genius by Eric Weiner

The Rise of the Creative Class by Richard Florida

Group Genius by Keith Sawyer

And be sure to check out Real Artists Don’t Starve by yours truly where these stories, and so many others, appear. It’s on a deep discount for the month of July, if you order it via Kindle.

How have you benefited from, or felt held back by, the Rule of the Scene?

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© 2024 Jeff Goins
548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104
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