The state of things
One of the common pieces of advice for creatives trying to build an audience is to post their work online on a regular basis. Aside from gaming social media algorithms, or using it as a reminder to practice, there is a good reason for this. In the same way that you might dislike someone on first impressions, but grow to be friends later, sometimes it takes repeated exposure to really appreciate someone’s style; to overcome the instinctive dislike of the unfamiliar, appreciate what makes it unique and begin to spot wider patterns within their body of work. Not everyone is immediately charismatic. Thus, post a lot.
Anyway, I have not been taking that advice. I lost what little audience I had via various social media moves and I’ve now stopped posting most of my art and writing online. I first assumed that was bad, but I’m not sure anymore.
In the first place, what’s with this assumption that a creative must want an audience? Surely this is just self-selection. My role models are necessarily within the subset of creatives who have garnered enough publicity for me to find their work. But that doesn’t mean they are the only happy ones. Why should I be like them? I can be one of the unseen people who make things in private and are happy.
Or can I?
The problem
My biggest motivations to create are
- express my thoughts
- make discoveries during the creative process
- make things for other people like me, who have slightly niche tastes
The first two don’t require an audience, but the last one does. It’s a drag, because I know how difficult it will be to reach those people with niche tastes. When I sit down to work on the hard, unexciting parts of a creative project, I should be able to think of its future readers to keep me going. Instead I think about how there will be no readers anyway, so I needn’t bother.
This is why most of my completed works are fanworks, because I can be confident they will have readers: fans are very good at finding their niche. No such security for original stuff.
It’s holding me back. I haven’t completed any ambitious original project in years despite that being one of my few life goals.
The solution?
So, to recap. I want to complete my original creative projects. But I lack extrinsic motivation.
I seem to have a few options:
- Acquire an audience. Go back to grinding social media, get back into the dopamine loop of Online Attention.
- Find different motivation, such as getting paid for my work or joining some sort of community of creatives who encourage each other.
- Give up. Don’t bother completing any original projects, just stick to fanworks and doing whatever I like with original stuff in private.
#1, returning to social media, is actually not the worst option ever. Getting attention online was fun back when I was into it. A bit like a videogame, with some exciting randomised elements, and a lot of experimenting with different inputs to get out what you want. But it’s soul-sucking. There are reasons I stopped.
#2, finding other extrinsic motivation, sounds near impossible. Getting paid for creative work is hard even for those with professional skill levels. And being accepted into some magical community that solves my problems is not realistic.
#3 you might assume is the worst. What do you mean give up!?
But I’m interested in it. I’ve been dependent on external validation to motivate me all this time and it’s not working out. What if I set myself free from even wanting it? I’d still be working on my projects, after all, just for an audience of one - myself. Maybe I would discover a new form of self-motivation. I’d be able to complete things at will. After that, I would be able to share my work again if I wanted, but from a place of power.
If I never discover any such power, well, I’m already failing. This way I’d feel less guilty about it.
That’s my new plan. Time to find out if it works. Step one: Finish this blog post. I am publishing it only as proof that it is in fact finished. If you have read this far… I don’t care! (cackles)