I keep a stash of images to post on Instagram.
Sometimes, I get low on supply and say, f- it. I’ll use this dumb picture I keep passing over because it’s meh. To me, it’s the peanuts and filberts at the bottom of the nut mix when all the cashews are gone. It’s the unflattering, laundry-day pants. It’s last-resort sh*t for desperate times.
I don’t think anyone will like it or care, but I’d rather share something than nothing.
And then, 9 times out of 10, that’s the one that gets the most likes and comments.
???????? ???? ????And that other post — the one I fussed over and dabbed endlessly with my mental artist’s brush, thinking, “this one’s the WINNER” — that one gets no more than a polite golf clap.
⛳️???? ????
Not that comments and likes are everything. But they’re a pretty good measure of what people respond to. And if your work is about evoking a reaction, that matters.
In this one sense, maybe artistic integrity is a myth.
You can say, “I don’t want to put this out there, it’s not good enough.”
But do you really know? What if you’re depriving someone who’d love it?
????Just like you can’t sort through an un-popped bag of microwave popcorn and pick out the loser kernels before you nuke them…
…Maybe it’s not up to you to decide whether your idea is bomb-diggity or suck-adelic.
Maybe it’s up to us. If you choose for us, we won’t get to see the stuff that might turn out to be our favorite.
????Here’s my optimistic artist’s rule of thumb:
????If you think your idea is solid gold, even if no one agrees with you, you’re still right.
????If you think it blows, that’s no reason to keep it to yourself. Because to someone else, you might be wrong.
Pop it all, see what happens. That’s the only way to know.
ps – I was just in a resort where everything on every menu, from pancakes to fish tacos, tasted like fake Orville Redenbacher butter flavor. Or like a popcorn Jelly Belly. So I’ve got popcorn on the brain. ????????
Now you.
Do you hoard and hide ideas you think won’t work? Ever find that people like your dumbest stuff the most?
TELL ME IN THE COMMENTS.
I’ve done paintings that I hated–and others coo over them. And ones that I really liked that the Spousal Overunit has looked at and said “Is it finished?”
Sigh. The creative life, eh?
I gotta confess that when you do creative stuffs, just do your best and then see what happens. But don’t give up because of naysayers.
Love this. Like I love everything you have to say. I have a storage bin of old unfinished stories, published essays (from long ago, I could easily re=publish) and the start of a novel from a former writers group. I’ve been a published writer for 30+ years now, and still have those “I think this is good, but who else would like it?” moments. And so the storage bin beneath the bed.
Time to get out the popcorn popper. Thanks, Laura.
It pisses me off that a post about making money pushed up my analytics like the face of Annapurna but the stuff I poored blood and bone into only delivered the Anna Wintour pout. So I think your approach to this is spot-on. Throw it all up and let the audience decide (even if their taste sucks). As my pappa said, “That’s the way the crumbie coockles.”
Thanks Laura, I think I’ve been in that phase for a while. I used to create more, but I think I’ve built up some higher expectations for quality, so I’ve been in hiding.
Sometimes it just takes a post like this to yank me out of my sleepwalking.
Hello? Long weekend? Time to create and publish.
Ok, time to pull out the poetry and see what happens! Thanks!
Sometimes I let the popcorn machine run longer in hopes that the unpopped kernel that is still jumping around will be tossed.
So I guess I need to learn to let go of what doesn’t pop as well 😉
It’s interesting. I’ve been reading and listening up on manifesting a lot the past year and part of the lesson in manifesting is to not be so tied to a specific outcome. How when you give up on a specific outcome (like thinking this one piece of content is going to rock people’s worlds) then chances it would perform better than one where you are so invested in making it the best ever to get the most reactions.
And this would make perfect sense. I agree that Insta posts of mine where i’m just, whatever I’ll post this do better than ones where I overly craft together an image. Probably because the energy put into creating the post is different. The first one I’m just posting to share in the moment and the second one I’m posting to get a certain response.
Okay now I’m rambling a bit. Not sure if that makes any sense, but whatevs… here I am popping the popcorn in this comment. It could be a dud or it could be a fluffy white kernel. Not for me to decide right?
Correction to that first sentence. Should be *will be popped, not tossed.
Holiday weekend brain!
YES!!!! I have about 5 children’s book outlines and storyboards that I decided should be shoved into a drawer, hidden from the world. But you’re absolutely right! You NEVER know what people will end up loving. The things I work on the hardest seem to be the ones being ignored, and the books I wrote and illustrated on one weekend are doing amazing! Maybe IT IS time to dig out those unsightly ideas…
Love that you had so much fun with Marie Forleo in Mexico! Sorry about the stale popcorn taste, though…
Gahhhhh this made my day! As a writer I NEVER KNOW this and I absolutely love the analogy of the popcorn ???? Just pop it all. Just don’t re-pop what didn’t go the first time!