Those who support you may not support your art.

Castles in the Sky #56

There is something that happens to every person who starts something new, particularly those of the variety who have harbored creative ambitions a long time. I’m going to focus on writers, but this applies to pretty much every kind of creative person, content creator, or entrepreneur.

They finally get started on their dream. They join a group, put the work in, launch a website, and voila! They are a published writer. 

And so they go back and tell all their loved ones. “Yeah, you know how I’ve always wanted to be a writer? I did it! Here’s my blog.” 

The adulation rolls in. 

“Amazing!”

“I’m so proud of you!”

“You really have a knack for this.”

Likes and shares abound. 

With the wind at their backs, our newly minted auteur goes back to the lab and writes something else. A similar amount of praise comes in–maybe a smidge less. The third time around, less definitely comes in. 

By the time our literary-luminary-in-waiting gets to ten pieces of published material, there has been a distinct drop in the amount of praise and feedback they receive. They may be hitting their artistic stride, reaching heights of their craft they never thought possible, but it seems like less people care than ever. What gives?

I have made a lot of new writer friends in the last few years, and we call this “the dip.” 

This happens because when you start writing and tell people, those people support you. 

What you want to find as a writer is people who support your writing. 

This is a problem that has plagued anyone who has ever tried to make anything new or create any kind of art. Unfortunately, for most people, the people who support you are not always the people who support your art. 

So what do you do about it? Well, frankly, you make more good stuff. Write more and put it out there. 

After you’ve hit a rhythm and writing is second nature, start to think a bit about distribution and self-promotion. There are books and courses on distribution and self-promotion that would not be current by the time I publish this essay, so I will not name specifics, but trust that there is a wealth of info out there. 

But the main reason I’m writing this is to give solace to a new-but-not-brand-new writer, creator, or entrepreneur who doesn’t understand why it feels like they’re losing momentum. What you’re going through is completely normal and not a reason to give up. 

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Give them an opportunity.

When I was 17 I went to live in Honduras for 8 weeks and work on a “community-based-initiative” where I solicited input from the community and raised funds to do a project for their benefit. What they decided was that they needed a new latrine for the school.

The three guys from the community who volunteered and I spent about two hours digging through dirt, and then about four weeks using a hammer and metal stake to break up rock to find the dirt on the other side. We asked a guy in the community for help and he informed us that, being as we were on the side of a mountain, we would never break through to the dirt on the other side. We were using a hammer to bore a hole through the bedrock of the Earth. 

He did however say that the hole was the perfect size for a septic tank, and he could help us get a grant from the government to put a new septic latrine at the school (which he did). He said, “why didn’t you just come to me earlier and tell me what you were doing, I would have loved to help and saved you a lot of trouble.” I learned a lesson that day that people will support you if you give them the opportunity. 

So this is me giving you the opportunity to support me, by making a pitch to become a paying subscriber.  

Those who are already paying are basically doing so “on spec.” I said, “you like what you see? It will still be free, but I would appreciate for you to pay.” The conventional thing to do here would be to say, “my readership has been growing and I have been getting great responses to the new stuff–I need to paywall some stuff to raise the paying readership.”

But I don’t want to do the conventional thing. I want to follow my own advice and do the weirdest thing that feels right. So everything will still be free–BUT there are some perks to becoming a paid subscriber!

• First, I am working on several books. When my books are published, I am going to ship signed copies to all of my paying subscribers for free. Hopefully someday I will have so many paying subscribers I’ll have to stop honoring this policy for the new ones that sign up, but we’re not even close to that for now. 

• Second, I am always looking for things to write about. While I don’t plan on paywalling my writing–I have got an idea for doing an “inspiration thread” where I ask people to share things that they have read that want me to analyze or respond to. 

• Finally, I plan to write more fiction, both here on Substack and in the books. Eventually–if you purchase a founding membership, I will work your name (or a name of your choosing) into one of the stories I write. 

For $8 per month, you can become a paying subscriber to Castles in the Sky. And although I love writing it and would do it for free, sometimes it does feel like using a metal stake to crack through the bedrock of the Earth in the hot Honduran Sun. 

Most of all, I want to thank all of you who have subscribed, liked, read, and shared so far, and especially those of you who have become paying subscribers: Ben, Grant, Igor, Spencer, Frank, Bruce, Sue, Rita, Susan, Abbey, Yehudis, Marsha, Maria, Ricardo, Ann, Julie, Mary, Andrea, Raquell.