Can one manufacture art?

Aliroz

By art, I mean stories/art/music/sculpture/creative-stuff-like-that.

For example, is writing a novel supposed to be a nine-to-five job where you have deadlines and meeting those deadlines gives you certain pressure that makes you, in the end, make a better novel?

OR is it supposed to be a thing where you write when your muse comes and you can't force inspiration and you take as long as you need and that, in the end, makes a better novel?

In other words, are the arts supposed to have a steady output of stuff?   Is drawing/writing/creative-stuff demanding, strenuous; or is it demanding and strenuous in a different way than physical labor, or is it something else entirely, or are artists people who don't really work and get to claim "writers block" when you never see a carpenter claim "carpenter's block"?

I dunno, I'm just asking a bunch of very general questions too broad to be really meaningful and asking them as creative persuits were monolithic and the same for everyone.

Anyways, I find the discussion in these comments http://www.jeffvandermeer.com/2009/05/13/neil-gaiman-on-the-limits-of-the-reader-writer-contract/ interesting.

Is writers block a real thing? http://niamhboyce.blogspot.com/2014/04/writers-block.html  or http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/05/entitlement-issues.html or http://www.moronosphere.com/2009/07/i-dont-belive-in-writers-block-neil-gaiman-said/ or something else?

One-Winged Eagle

Okay so here's a thing.

"Novel" doesn't describe anything except a form. It needs to be fiction, it needs to be printed, and it needs to be around or above forty thousand words. I could write a novel, tomorrow, by smashing together words. It wouldn't be legible, it wouldn't be any good, and I would be utterly ashamed of it. But it would be a novel.

There are writers who do nothing but make stupid paint-by-the-numbers boilerplate not-even-airport thriller books. But they're still novels because they meet the requirements. 

Now the artistic process, that's a different matter. And you'll get some very murky answers. Personally, I like the answers that describe art and craft with the same breath. Muses ain't shit, and discipline is what gets you through it all. Writing is actually re-writing. 

Carpenters tend to do the same thing over and over and over. Carpenters don't get block because they've learned to do this thing. They've honed it. Art is less like that, I believe. Art more closely resembles exploration, because every trip through the work is different.

Yarrun XIX

Songs can be produced by algorithm now.

Not necessarily artistic songs, but songs nonetheless.

Muses are a thing, but discipline allows you to make better use of the muse when she shows up.

Tre

Skellett Skelletariat said:

Songs can be produced by algorithm now.

Heh, big room in a nutshell.

Obā-san

that's not an algorithm they are literally the exact same song, they even all have the exact same snare sample leading into the drop

glennmagusharvey

one of these days i'll make a j-pop harmony generator that randomly selects one of multiple choices for an intro segment, a verse first section, a verse second section, a refrain, a bridge, and a closing.