Grown Up Gigs Claire Beaudreault - Writer + Rapper + Nail Artist! - When I Grow Up

Grown Up Gigs Claire Beaudreault - Writer + Rapper + Nail Artist! - When I Grow Up Picture it: A girl arrives in NYC with 2 suitcases, $1000, no job, and no apartment. She has her BFA in theater, with a concentration in puppetry. She moves to NYC with the goal of getting an office job and doing her art in her spare time. Always identifying as a multi-hyphenate, she  dabbles in burlesque, drums, and selling art online while being a Customer Service rep for Etsy. The irony is not lost on her that she supports artists in quitting their jobs and living their dream careers, yet she  wont allow it for herself. Its 2011. She decides to get serious about making money from her creativity and takes 12 weeks to work through The Artists Way. She becomes a nail artist and rapper in the process, by sharing her work and having a big mouth. She quits her job in late 2011 when all of her hobbies have become sources of income. She realizes that all of my slashes inform each other. Its 2015. She takes a job as a Writer (capital W!) at a dream company. Now she gets to do what other people do when theyre slacking off at their day job while recording and touring with her rap group and saying Yes to  the nail gigs that pay her well. Wanna hear what she learned along the way, and how she stays true to her mutli-hyphenate nature? Click here to hear Claires  story  in Episode 8 of Grown Up Gigs!   Show Notes: find Claires nail art site here, her hip-hop group here, and here on Tumblr and  Instagram  and Twitter Ditch Your Day Job with me here (bonuses from Batchbook and Bidsketch) Backstage The Artists Way Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, its just not that good. Its trying to be good, it has potential, but its not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesnt have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I t ook longer to figure out how to do this than anyone Ive ever met. Its gonna take awhile. Its normal to take awhile. Youve just gotta fight your way through. -Ira Glass Austin Kleon Esmé  Wang and her Grown Up Gigs episode Binder Con Gina Edwards Carrie Brownstein Tom Waits Rza from Wu-Tang Clan Lucy Lius paintings Shark Week video and Lena Dunham video Barkbox and Barkpost Join me on June 25th for the next  Grown Up Gigs podcast, where I interview  the Owner of Lauren Caselli Events, my former client  Lauren Caselli!