There are things I’m finally beginning to understand. Things are snapping into focus. But things sure as heck got blurry before I gained this new found clarity. I almost felt like giving up. Sure glad I didn’t.
When you have multiple interests, it’s not always easy to determine what you want from each of them, where they belong, and how to make them all fit together.
Poetry
I love writing poems, but I have to confess they don’t seem to draw in many readers to my other blog, Mildly Creative. In fact, if I’m really being honest, they seem to have the opposite effect. Does this mean I’m a bad poet? Maybe. How does one ever really know if they’re good or bad at writing poems? Does it matter? Not if you have to write them.
But the fact that my MC readers don’t all dig my poems, or perhaps any poems, is not a reason to stop writing them. It just means they need a different home. So, once again, I’m rethinking where everything belongs.
I’m also rethinking the purpose of this blog and the other. I’ve done this before. I’ve waffled back and forth on what to do with each of them. I even thought about killing this one, but I couldn’t and I’m glad I didn’t.
This is a good place for poems and some day I’ll have enough of them to fill a book. This is also a good place for introspective navel gazing pieces like this one.
I’ve said it before. Mildly Creative is something I do for others. It’s about time I started acting that way. You can’t force people to like everything you do, but you can care enough about them to understand what they do like and try to give it to them.
But that doesn’t mean I should eighty-six the other parts of myself. After all, there are people who actually like my poems. I just need to find a way to reach them other than through MC.
And it’s not as though there’s no place for poems on MC. I just have to select and deliver them in ways that fit the needs of my readers. That’s all.
Drawing
I’m not that great at drawing, but people don’t really seem to care. This is one of the most freeing things I’ve discovered.
For a while, I was really frustrated with my stilted progress and I stopped drawing pictures for my posts on MC, but things seemed so cold without them. Then I finally realized that no one cared if I was a skilled artist. They could go elsewhere for beautiful craftsmanship. They just liked the fact that my drawings, for the most part, were funny or thought provoking. That, I believe, I can do.
That realization changed everything and opened up the door to clarity on a lot of other issues as well. I suddenly better understood what kind of drawings I should be creating for MC. And that understanding helped me understand what kind of posts I should be writing. And that helped me understand why I never killed Ken and Paper: because I need it to explore my other interests that may not best serve the readers of MC.
I really do want to create some products (i.e. books, perhaps t-shirts, and so on) and services (workshops, teleclasses) for my MC readers. Understanding why they visit my blog will help me produce those things – and gain more readers in the process.
Guitar
I do that for fun. Period.
Writing
I do this because I have to. Because I would go crazy if I didn’t. It’s the thing, more than anything else, that I want to get better at, and I hope to do so.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I suppose as an artist developing your talent out in the open to inspire other people you will always be wondering how much of the readers’ experience should be in the studio and how much in the gallery. Make mine a vote for the gallery being set up in the corner of the studio. Your authenticity and the immediacy of what you experience and learn are compelling.
If huge numbers of people are dropping your RSS feed or something like that, screaming “Poems make me vomit!” then maybe it’s a good idea to leave them out of MildlyCreative. Maybe. But if you were doing cooking videos, and every time you cooked with brussels sprouts you got complaints, what would you do? Make a brussels sprouts cooking site and leave your other cooking things on the main site? Quit cooking brussels sprouts? (assuming, in my unbelievable analogy, that you like brussels sprouts and cook them to deliciousness)
You talk to us about creativity as a personal development plan — like Barbara Winter talks about self-employment as a personal development plan — and then share your personal journey. That includes drawing, poetry, guitar, fiction writing, and nonfiction writing.
What I’m saying is, unless there is an unaffordable cost in doing so, don’t fragment who you are and hide part away. Because there IS an unaffordable cost in doing precisely that.
People who flee because of poems aren’t part of your “natural monopoly” and probably aren’t part of your larger tribe. Those who go, “Oh, a poem, I’ll skip that,” but come back for the other things you post, those are your people.
I appreciate your concern, but I’m very happy with my decisions.