This summer, Pen + Brush is teaming up with experts in both the visual and literary arts to bring our readers a guest blogger series focused on insights, advice and information that will help artists and writers take their work and their careers to the next level.
For our first topic, "Removing Barriers & Finding Your Own Creative Path," publishing world expert Jane Friedman provides the following thoughts on the three important questions that every creative person must ask themselves to succeed in their chosen field.
3 Questions Every Creative Person Must Ask
by Jane Friedman
I'm starting to find that the same dilemmas come up again and again when I talk with a group about online media and marketing.
These are dilemmas that I can't solve. They boil down to three questions you have to ask yourself--and be able to answer honestly--to find a path that's your own, not mine.
1. Are you creating primarily for yourself or primarily for an audience?
Almost all of my advice is based on the assumption that you want to entertain, inform, or increase your audience. Not everyone is concerned with this, nor should they be.
If you're producing work for an audience, it means:
•Playing by at least some rules of the industry
•Caring what others think of your work
•Interacting with your audience and being available to them
•Doing things not for your art, but out of service to your audience
•Putting on a performance, or adopting some kind of persona
•Marketing and being visible
If you're creating for yourself, it means:
•The act is worthwhile regardless of who sees your work
•Fulfillment comes from your struggle with the practice, not from distribution or feedback
Of course, you may be creating for both yourself AND an audience. But some artists who believe they are producing work for an audience aren't willing to make the sacrifices required to do so. Which means there's another level to this.
Are you:
•Creating for an audience
•Creating for an audience that earns you money
Once money enters the equation, you have to start sacrificing more of what you want, and bend to the demands of the market (or find a generous patron or foundation!).
What is it that you truly want out of your creative endeavors? Do you really know?
2. How much of yourself are you going to share? And which part?
Let's assume you do want an audience (of any size). It necessitates some kind of persona. Deciding not to have a persona (removing yourself from visibility, Pynchon style) is a persona.
You can't imitate someone else's persona. You can only be yourself. Some of us think famous people are (or ought to be) aloof and distant, so we imitate aloofness, even when it has nothing to do with our personality.
After I give talks about digital marketing, relationship building, and social media, inevitably one person will come up and say, "I don't want to be visible online. I just want people to read my stories."
That's a rather boring proposition in this day and age.
So you have to ask yourself--even if you're shy or think you're boring--what part of yourself are you going to share and put on display? It's got to be something, so let's make it interesting. Let's really dive into the fiction of who you are OR aren't. Make up something you can believe in, so others can believe in it, too. (That's what we all want, most desperately. Meaning.)
3. What is your killer medium?
For me (personally), it's not the book form. It's the workshop or the conference keynote. It's the ability to answer any question thrown at me. It's my desire to be of service in a personalized way.
Speaking about writers specifically, the book is often assumed to be the most authoritative and important medium, but that's only because we've all been led to believe that (through a culture that has created The Myth about the author as authority).
It's a Myth, neither good nor bad. Just a belief system that, increasingly, we're all moving away from.
Creative people too often pursue mediums that have been pushed on them by other people, and because it's the well-worn path. Instead, follow the Apple motto: "Think different."
About Jane Friedman
Jane Friedman has 20 years of experience in the publishing industry, with expertise in digital media strategy for authors and publishers. She's the co-founder and editor of The Hot Sheet, the essential publishing industry newsletter for authors, and the former publisher of Writer's Digest. In addition to being a professor with The Great Courses and the University of Virginia, she maintains an award-winning blog for writers at JaneFriedman.com (more than 180,000 visits per month).
Jane has delivered keynotes on the future of authorship at the San Francisco Writers Conference, The Muse & The Marketplace, and HippoCamp, among many other conferences. She speaks regularly at industry events such as BookExpo America and Digital Book World, and has served on panels with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Creative Work Fund.
She has a book forthcoming from the University of Chicago Press, The Business of Being a Writer (2017).