Please don't let step three interfere with step one.

Often, we measure the success of a creative project by the size of the audience, or the kind of feedback we get, or the money we make from it.

All those things can be useful.
And they have their place.
But there's so much more at stake.

I have some ideas about the creative process,
and making it work for me/you.
I am testing some theories.
I've been prodding "the creative process"
to see which parts of it matter to me,
and in what ways those parts matter.

In making theatre, it was a very direct circle.
Make a play (with people.)
Show it to people.
(Or at least try.)
And get immediate feedback.
I loved, in fact, the part of the process that involved sitting with the audience and listening.
I learned the most from that part of the process.

But.

I am trying to figure out what parts of the process I need
in order to be satisfied. Fulfilled.

Making a thing.
Refining a thing.
Publishing a thing.
Telling people I published a thing.
Feedback.
And more refinement.

I love being in rehearsal.
It's where I most come alive.
And I also love writing.
It's a close second.

And I just love making art.
It's my way of understanding the universe
and my way of relating to the world.
So I would almost be satisfied to "make stuff"
all day.

John Cage and/or Corita Kent said –
"Nothing is a mistake."
Thank you.
"There is no win and no fail."
That's right.
"There is only make."
And it's almost always enough.

One of my happiest stretches in the last couple of years
was when I was deep into the writing of the book.
For a couple of months
I was writing every single day.
I took three days off in the middle of it.
Otherwise, I woke up every day and did the same thing.
Make coffee.
Get dressed (comfy clothes only.)
Grab my bag (packed the night before.)
Go to the shop.
Write.

("The shop" is a building owned my a dear, dear friend.
He gave me space to work.)

It was glorious.
I was so happy.
Every morning I battled demons
and I mostly won.
If I wrote for a few hours
and made a little progress
I felt like I'd won the day.
Hell, I felt like I'd won the lottery.

What I did the rest of the day barely seemed to matter.
I was as happy and fulfilled as I've ever been.

Would that have been satisfying forever?
Or would I, at some point, have had the urge to share
some of what I was doing?

I was focused on making something for other people.
The book is meant to help people,
It has little purpose without that fact.
And I felt strongly about the need for it,
as I was writing it.

So what about this, what I'm writing now?
Am I doing this for me,
or for you?
It's a polarity, another dear friend might suggest.
And if it's too much "for you,"
it's not enough "for me."
And vice versa.

That's part of what was great about writing the book.
It truly was equal parts
"For you" and "for me."
I was writing the book I needed to read
in order to be able to write the book.

I was writing for an audience.
And at the same time
I was a part of that audience.
I was waiting for the author to tell me what to do next.
Maybe the fire I felt was a result of the perfect balance of that polarity.
Maybe when those elements are in balance, there's a chemical reaction.
Combustion.

I have published without telling anyone.
It's a luxury the internet affords.
You can pretend there will be an audience
long enough for the pressure to improve your writing and revising.

I am trying to get unhooked from any notions of what happens after I click "publish." Can I believe it matters and also be unattached from any particular outcome?

You can click "publish," get the satisfaction of putting it out there in the world, and then walk away and never worry about what happens after that.

I have recorded audio, edited it, published it on the internet, and told no one. I recorded it "for" an audience, with the audience very much in mind.

I don't think I could trick myself. I couldn't record it "for" an audience if I was just pretending I was going to publish it, if I knew it was just going into a metaphorical drawer later.

But I skipped the part about trying to get an audience.

How I ended up there?

I asked...
"What matters?"
and
"What would this look like if it were easy?"
and
"What part of this is too difficult to bear?"

I discovered that I was excited about every part of the process except for the very moment of telling other people I'd made something and put it on the internet.

I could imagine clicking "publish" and seeing it there.
I could even imagine getting feedback from people who hated it, and being okay with that.
But when I imagined telling people that I'd made something and posted it on the internet
I got the willies. I wigged out. I felt gross.

I decided that I'd rather do the work and never tell anyone
than not do the work at all.
I had an itch that needed to be scratched.
It's been a very happy experience so far.
I am fortunate that it doesn't matter in any practical way whether the work gets an audience.
And I've decided that my ego is not attached to it.
As long as nothing changes, I guess I'll keep doing it that way.

This has been a useful experiment.
And I don't know if I'll ever go further with that project.
That's okay.
I have learned from the experience.
I have bolstered my self-efficacy.
I've had a lot of fun.
All of that is valuable.

The audience is important.
But it's not the only thing.
Too often, we begin by thinking about the audience.
Too often, we let concerns about the feedback stop us from getting started.

All that audience stuff comes later in the process, if at all.
Please don't let step three interfere with step one.
Cut it out entirely, if that's what it takes.
There's a lot of important stuff that happens long before you show your work to anyone.
I don't want you to be deprived of all that.
Don't you want to find out what's going to happen?