3 Questions Every Creative Person Must Ask

Glacier National Park

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.”

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Cindy Thrasher

Thank you for this.  I think I’ve been askng myself these same questions, but not in words…more in feelings.  And as we all know, “feelings,” while a bonafide language in many situations, are not enough upon which to base change or growth.  Wonderful (and much needed) post.

Jane Friedman

Thanks, Cindy! Right you are.

Lisa Hall-Wilson

Interesting… But isn’t the most important thing about social media authenticity and transparency? How does creating a persona lend itself to that? I suppose it must happen to some degree.

Jane Friedman

Insightful question! I didn’t mean to suggest that a persona can’t or shouldn’t be authentic and transparent. To explain further:

The root of the word “person” is the Latin word “persona,” meaning “mask.” My belief is that all of us walk around wearing some kind of mask that we’ve created, based on the situation/environment/moment. 

We don’t wear the same mask around coworkers as we do around our parents as we do around our kids, etc. Each mask emphasizes some things and leaves other things out.

It’s the same concept as realizing the story you tell about your life does indeed become your life. The way in which you frame it makes all the difference. Same with your persona. 

I don’t think it’s possible to project something that’s a “true” identity because such a thing does not exist. But that doesn’t mean you can’t project something you believe is an authentic and a genuine window into who you are and what you’re doing, at least in relation to your readership and identity as a writer.

Mikael

This is interesting because I am trying to find myself on Twitter. What Twitter personality should I display. That depends on my goals being on Twitter, that is becoming more narrow. If I am going to pursue screenwriting career then it will be totally different then pursuing sharing the spiritual side of myself. I see both as service to others, but one might be more shocking, obscure, rude, witty and controversial while the other might be more clear, careful, polite and considered in general. It seems to be on automatic when and if I will be able to decide. But as well these two personalities mingle and share some attributes only in different degrees. I can allow more of one thing with the other then I can allow with the other. But I can not be both at the same time. That would confuse people. So in fact I am doing it for others through clarity and marketing. You get more attention when putting out that might grab attention, but it might also let you fail miserably. It is always risky and you will never be everyone´s cup of tea and it is scary to allow yourself be judged by others. That is why I have so often deleted tweets that I think people might dislike. Like for example when I compared tweeting with masturbation.

Jane Friedman

Exactly so! Thanks so much for sharing your experience of this dilemma.

Gwen McClellan

yes, rather like watching the sunset through the trees, and shifting your stance a bit; then observing how the light glares or reflects behind a tree. all the vantage points that are possible. seems we get to at least aspire to choose what combination of authentic aspects of ourselves to share, as in how we describe an experience to a teen offspring vs a good friend vs a co-worker.

Katy

In astrology, your ascendant or rising sign is your persona, the mask that you wear. Your sun sign is your life path, and your moon sign comfort and habits. They are all different aspects of your true self, and expressing one aspect at a particular time does not make it any less true. Expressing different personas is fun!

Gwen McClellan

so beautifully and clearly said.

Jill Kemerer

I’ve been creating on online presence for years, but all of these questions come up for me repeatedly. With new social sites and new contacts, I ask myself what I’m most comfortable with sharing and what seems to resonate with others. The unexpected upside? I’m more comfortable being myself.

Jane Friedman

I always hope that happens for people; I think it means you’re doing something right.  🙂

Jill Kemerer

Thanks, Jane. I appreciate the vote of confidence. 🙂

Gwen McClellan

yes. and also, the response is telling.

Lisa Rivero

Really good questions. Thanks, Jane. Your first one reminds me of work in creativity that shows that successful creative people have to have a mixture of being both rebellious and being able to play by the rules when necessary. Many people have trouble with one or the other. Thanks for the reminder of the importance of both.

Jane Friedman

Yes! Absolutely! Thank you for stating it so succinctly and powerfully.

Dixie Redmond

I just wrote about the kinds of art we create – it dovetails with this so I put a link to this in the comments.  Great writing!  I came here through someone’s tweet.

Dixie

Jane Friedman

Lovely! Thank you.

bridgetstraub.com

Very interesting post. I think my books are my strongest medium but then again…

Jane Friedman

You never know. Pays to dream a little.  🙂

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[…] 3 Questions Every Creative Person Must Ask Are you creating primarily for yourself or for an audience? How much of yourself are you willing to share? What is your killer medium? Source: janefriedman.com […]

Susan Husk

I started writing for my family so that they would know our heritage, but the purpose morphed into the need to tell a compelling story to anyone who would listen. If there were a place to do so, I could as easily be satisfied verbally repeating the story as I am in trying to replicate it in print.  Sometimes the need to share with an audience is as altruistic as writing for yourself without anyone knowing it. Sometimes motive, personal investment, and means blur in varied measure. Thank you for defining the three considerations. It is often good to review the basics.

Jane Friedman

Blurring of lines—absolutely. In writing about these issues, sometimes I feel like I’m nailing down things that are impossible to talk about. But we have to start the discussion somewhere.  🙂

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[…] 3 Questions Every Creative Person Must Ask Are you creating primarily for yourself or for an audience? How much of yourself are you willing to share? What is your killer medium? Source: janefriedman.com […]

L. C. Sterling

The contemporary conundrum: we’re supposed to be crafting works of art … but we must be commercial; we’re supposed to emulate, and surpass, the greatest authors … but we’re also supposed to do that while “listening to what the audience wants.”

I must write for myself first, but writing, by definition, means that one wants to be read.  At least if one is writing a novel, as I am, and not a journal.

In the brave new world of “what’s your brand? (barf)” one apparently has an easier time being published writing YA crap vs. “literary fiction.”

Writer as marketer? Doesn’t seem possible. If Picasso had gone around hawking his art, would he have become Picasso? (In fact, Picasso said, “As soon as an artist is popular, he is no longer an artist.”)

I do marketing for a living … have done for decades. And I couldn’t possibly do the same thing for my personal writing.

Jane Friedman

I would argue that Picasso did indeed hawk his art. Not like soap or laundry detergent, certainly, but he was savvy about his career.

L. C. Sterling

He did indeed, but in an iconoclastic way, no? Not by “pandering.”

Jane Friedman

I guess it all depends on how pandering might be defined or what it might encompass! Bottom line, writers/artists will be disappointed if they sit on their hands, silent and motionless, and wait for the quality of their work to be acknowledged/validated/consumed, whether by peers, the critics, or the masses.

The purest definition of marketing, I believe, is to make people aware something exists. I don’t think that is pandering.

L. C. Sterling

You’re correct, Jane.  Marketing has been my field for more than 30 years.  It can only create awareness, it can’t sell.

My question is about the divergence between being a true writer and being a self-marketer. It seems as if most of those using the Web and social media to self-promote are treating writing as a business vs. a craft.

Am I alone in thinking this?

Jane Friedman

Not at all … we’ll go back to your original point, “it’s a conundrum.” 

I tend to be an optimist, though. I’d like to believe it’s possible to market oneself or one work in a way that feels natural. Given the diversity of tools/technologies available today, it seems writers have more options than ever to be creative/imaginative in being visible to their market, whether via podcast, video, Twitter, Facebook, electronic greeting cards, e-newsletters, GoodReads, Instagram, … etc.

I’m guilty of the Zen view: if you’re able to play and have fun in whatever sandbox you choose—and not take it too seriously—you can market effortlessly just by being yourself.

L. C. Sterling

I guess everything about the “brave new world” of online self-marketing strikes so many wrong notes for me.  I’ve been writing as long as I’ve been a marketer, and their objectives are as far apart as they could be.

It seems as if the new dynamic of “be your brand” has dramatically altered what makes an author, and to me not in any good ways.

The more I think about it, the less I am inclined to do it.

Gwen McClellan

well, it seems the model ,not of writing, but of becoming ‘known’ has certainly changes as radically and rapidly as the world itself, with internet and online literary journals and the accepted necessity to take responsibility for finding your own comfortable, happy in your own sandbox way of creating your own platform. Seems its an equation that has changed a great deal. Yet, look at all the remarkable writers, and other creative people, who did not have connections or luck into becoming ‘discovered’. It seems this is the flip side of that..that rather than relying upon luck and connection and circumstance, we actually have an option of loving to write, writing as well as we do, learning as we go, and then finding the ways of creating a platform that we actually enjoy, and fine-tuning it so that it supports the possibility of something we write being of greater interest for publication. Brave new world, and it will change over and over again.

Gwen McClellan

great point. and sandbox.

Gwen McClellan

It seems, dare I say, that in this day and age, first of all it is not an evil selfish thing to want to excel at a creative expression, nor is it to be scorned to aspire to be well known for one’s creative efforts. Yet, many create remarkable things and are not well known. Aside from writing and photography, I have had an Acupressure/Herbalist practice for years. I did advanced training for bodyworkers who wanted to be more successful. It was the hardest thing to let them know that a practice is a business. that requires marketing and awareness, but done with honesty and authenticity, with the focus of the relationship with the client coming first. I suspect writing and begin read is similar. In that it is not disingenuous to both write because one is moved to write,and, and read well, and learn to write with more and more acuity. But in the present time, it is also not a magical thinking phenomenon, but rather a problem solving, writing as a business factor. Where we need to learn all the things you have written so well about in this blog. Certainly becoming ‘known’ and ‘popular’ cannot be the defining force for writing. It simply does not work. But as you say, having a sense of clarity and inquiry into honestly what your goals are, and then informing yourself of how to position yourself and your writing to achieve those goals, is part of the deal in order to become well read.