We live in a world of noise where there is more stuff than ever be it content, media, tech, people, sports, choices, options and the list goes on and on.
As a writer I remember a post by Jeff Goins about art needing an audience. I guess it depends on what you are doing, I consider myself a writer but I guess I’ve always used my blog as more of a journey for an audience of one.
It is here not for anyone else but me and that has always been OK. It was my outlet for my frustrations, a way to release the fear and frustration so it limited it’s impact on me.
Now I have to move into a new chapter where I give my writing focus and meaning. As a person how much do I reveal about the writing that is closest to my heart and does it matter if this piece of fiction I seek to tell is read, do I need an audience or is putting it out there in whatever form it takes enough.
I know that I’ve evaded and dodged making the decision to have this story be my primary focus. I have no job, I don’t have the experience that others have but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try.
Maybe I will have an audience of one but it always starts at that, what matters is growing that person into many. I will not write for everyone, I think primarily I have to write for myself, write a story that I would like to read.
That is where I need to begin, where I have to. You have to say who you but also understand that, it alone doesn’t define you. An audience is hard to cultivate because of the massive volume of stuff that is all around us wanting our attention.
No matter how much we can multitask we still have only 24 hours in a day, 365 (366 for 2016) in a year and time never stops. So the most valuable thing we have besides our lives is our time.
When you are a teenager it feels like you have all the time in the world, as you grow into adulthood you come to realize that you don’t and the ticking clock is both a blessing and a curse.
Now we have more things than ever wanting more of our time, it ways that just wasn’t possible 20 years ago. How can I get an audience, how do I be deserving of their time to read what I write when there is so much other stuff around all of us.
I guess that just means I have to earn it, by being vocal, not being shy about what I am trying to do. At some point I am going to have to invest in ways to go beyond having an audience of one and that’s assuming my work is good.
Maybe it will be but I expect as with any written work for me it will forever be a work in progress, malleable until I step back and not say its finished but say it’s good enough.
I have never written a book, I’ve written news but never scaled the mountain of novel-writing. A novel is what I consider a throwaway, something whose sole purpose is to take us out of our day-to-day and into another world.
I see lots of ebooks in the form of how to which are used to see someone’s courses or services as much as they help the people who read them.
I don’t have that kind of gravity for the universe that I’ve created in my head and on the page. So how am I going to make it matter and give it reason to be read so that I can get beyond an audience of one.
I want an audience, what writer doesn’t but what I know is I don’t need one to give the time spent on my story and world meaning. The act of writing it and releasing it with all the faults and errors that it will contain is enough.
The true proof my commitment is to take the feedback I get to evolve the concept and the story and to continue to grow the world.
I never had a sense of urgency with my story, with the concept but now that I have the time it will be what I focus on. I have an idea of how I want to get it out there, to serialize the story once I have the story beats mapped out.
But even before then I will start telling stories in the world, to just practice my craft and create the world I have been cultivating in secret for so long.
I want an audience but I don’t deserve an audience until I can put the time into cultivating it and earning their time and patience. That is the hope so while I don’t go into this with a need for my story to reach people I hope that if I give it everything if i am lucky and persistent I’ll be able to find one even if it’s just a small one.
Through focus, passion and just enough stubbornness to not listen to the critics I will give my world a chance to live outside my imagination and in give it a life of it’s own through those that give me the honour or reading it.
So that is the goal, that is summit and I have already starting preparing but not it is time to climb. I won’t look at the summit of this mountain just of what lay in front, a long way but a doable one, worth the time and effort for what it means to grow my ability and what it means to share a story I’ve poured everything I am into.