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You made something, and no one cares. Now what? | Listen (6 min)
When I was a kid, I loved the movie The Unsinkable Molly Brown. It’s a 1964 musical that tells the story of the real-life Margaret Brown, a wealthy Colorado woman who survived as a passenger aboard the Titanic.
The film shows the sinking of the famous ship, but that’s not the part that filled six-year-old me with anxiety.
Earlier in the movie, there’s a scene where Molly and her husband Johnny throw a party, but because they’re “new money” none of their snobbish, upper-class neighbors show up. The Browns are left standing almost entirely alone in a house prepared for a gathering.
As an adult, I can see why this bothered me.
Most people can identify with this combination of embarrassment and disappointment, but I want to talk about how it affects creators.
One of the most disheartening silences to an artist is a poor response to their work.
If you paint, sculpt, write, weld, weave, or craft in any way you’ve probably endured this.
You devote years to writing a novel, but you only manage to sell five copies.
You audition passionately for a play but never hear back from the director.
You work your way through ceramics school, set up at every art show in driving distance, and find you don’t have enough customers to keep paying for gas.
You built it, and no one came.
I didn’t mean for this year to be about the silences that terrify, but I’m going with it. Fear is the reason I and many others flee from quiet.
When you’re a creator, silence reads like failure. You’ve baited your hook, cast your line, waited, and no one bit.
So, what do you do?
The easiest thing to do is blame the audience and say they have no taste. Or declare that the culture doesn’t value creativity. And you might be right, but even if you are, grumbling won’t change it.
The only thing we can control are our own choices. As hard as it is—and I often fail at this—I find the best way to respond is to treat the silence as a gift. An opportunity.
I’ve thought of five common reactions to unresponsiveness and five actionable ways to redirect that energy. I’m sure there are more, and I hope you’ll share them in the comments.
I preface this list with a clarification. Most of these reactions aren’t negative when done in moderation or given specific circumstances. It’s when they’re taken to the extreme that they become unhealthy.
I wrote these with fiction writers in mind, but they’d be useful to any creator.
Your reaction to a silent or disinterested public is to say, my writing is great, there’s nothing wrong with it, everyone else is the problem.
Make this a time for honest assessment. Look over your work or ask someone whose opinion you trust.
Everyone has an area they can improve, so find your weaknesses, and focus on strengthening.
Maybe you need to work on character motivation. Scene transitions. Overuse of adverbs.
Find yourself a workbook or exercises tailored to your problem spots. Take an in-person or online class. Use writing prompts to work on your areas of concern.
Strive to improve your craft.
Your reaction is to bury yourself in the works of writers who are succeeding in metrics, likes, subs, etc., but who you’d never want to imitate or with whom you have nothing in common.
It’s much more useful to read writers you enjoy and respect. The ones that fill your cup.
Take this time to read classic and contemporary pieces by authors who inspire. Reread a favorite book and note what you love about it.
You react by continuing as you were—same genre, style, and story length. Someone will notice eventually, right?
Consistency is admirable, but every once in a while it’s good to break out.
Use the quiet stretches to play with genre and style. Maybe you think of yourself as a fantasy writer, but you’ve always wanted to try literary fiction. Now’s your chance.
You’ll enjoy the change and may find that it connects you with a new audience.
You react by working even harder, denying yourself any downtime.
Of course I’m going to recommend rest and relaxation. Spend time with family and friends. Take long walks.
But this is also a good time to rediscover hobbies. To enjoy the creativity you’ve been denying yourself in gardening, sewing, or photography.
Escape for a while in another artistic endeavor.
Your reaction to the silence is to linger on your last piece, to over-analyze, to ask people why they didn’t like it.
Assuming you’ve got the energy and don’t need a break, it’s time to let the last one go and jump headfirst into the next.
Explore characters, outline your story, begin the first draft. Get excited about the next project.
Dive into all the elements you love about planning a new story.
Now, I’d like to hear from you. What do you do with the unresponsive periods in your creative life? And what do you want to do with that time?
If you enjoyed this post…
Painting is Waiting by Edgar Degas, 1882.
Great, actionable suggestions! I suspect this fear is also what prevents many writers (and other creatives) from sharing their work to begin with. This is why I think it's so important to always have more eggs in your basket, so to speak, and to be working on something else as soon as you finish one project. (I'm admittedly bad at this, but trying to get better). You also need to have a definite Why for what you're doing that goes deeper than money or outside affirmation.