"The act of chasing everyone is probably keeping you from reaching anyone." - Seth Godin
Sometimes, a readership. Not that it's worth it.
Depth of connection with an audience, even an audience of six, always wins out over sheer numbers.
The idea is called "continuous publishing", and it doesn't thrill me.
Kevin Drum dropped an aphorism worth repeating: "When you write, pretend you’re writing for people you respect."
When you start by trying to please others instead of yourself, you end up pleasing no one.
On ramping up from an audience that can be counted on one hand.
Movies have more second lives than ever, but only because they barely have first ones.
How different a standard should we have for works aimed at younger audiences vs. those aimed at "all" audiences?
Spoiler: It doesn't exist.
Works don't exist just to please audiences. But authors also don't exist just to please themselves.
And still nothing on.
Who's really worth pleasing when you're writing? (And why?)
On not second-guessing audience responses to your work (again).
On when not everyone who shows up for your work is showing up for your work.
At what point does "doing your own thing" become mere contempt for the audience?
On "pretentious" and "elitist".
"What kind of story should I write?" How about one that's, you know, yours?
The uncanny has become the new normal.
Because if it's popular, it has to be good! Right? Right?
There is no creativity by committee, but we love to believe otherwise.
On media as a water-cooler subject, and how it becomes about everything except itself.
The eyes we give creators to look through aren't even their own anymore -- they're a composite of everyone else's.
On why hyping yourself always feels like it should be someone else's job -- except when it really isn't.
Empire's greatest-movies list is skewing unpleasantly towards spectacle and superficial fanboyism.