Writers: Develop A Vaccination Against Author-Invisibility

As writers and creators it’s time to build your success-insurance policy

Nothing’s more frustrating than releasing a piece of content, a product, or other creation to an empty room. We work our fingers down to fragments and… nothing. We get discouraged. We wonder if all this is really for us. We pout. And. If we’re not careful. We put our dreams in a drawer.

But that’s not how success works.

Life’s got no linear path. There are peaks an valleys to our days, months, years, and lifetimes. Success is a hock-stick graph, not a simple ramp. No one who has ever made it doing anything, rode a smooth ramp to the top.

Yet we convince ourselves our path will be different.

We believe our work is so exceptional we’ll start out the gate and be famous after a couple long weekends behind the keyboard, or a few months in the studio. We know the stories of those who came before us — a lot of stories — but something in our brains trick us into believing we’re different.

We are not different.

No one’s coming. It’s all on us. And we’re not entitled to any of it, no matter what Mom and Dad told us. Most don’t make it. Most put their dreams back in the drawer. Sure, they’ll give those dreams a quick thought, while stuck in a cubicle farm somewhere, but the drawer stays shut.

Dreams and aspirations are the hard stuff and we aren’t wired to do the hard stuff.

Everything in our wiring fights against us as we strive for something new. Our environment pushes against us. Our audience doesn’t live up to our dream expectations. Our brains pump the brakes and do everything they can to trick us back into mediocrity.

Gross.

Don’t want that for yourself? Cool. Me neither. I fight against all this every day. As I write this I speak to myself. But there’s good news at the end of it. The answer is simpler (but not easier) than you thought. I’ll share the secret in a second.

Five More Hidden Cognitive Biases that Silence Our Best Creative Output

We aren’t working hard enough

Now, this isn’t some rah-rah, hustle-’till-you-drop-dead story. This is about doing what’s necessary to get the result you want to achieve.

We’re not famous. So we’ll use brute force instead.

As blue-collar scrappers we’ve got a secret weapon the others don’t have. We show up every. single. day. If we don’t want to be invisible we’ll make them pay attention.

Works for kids, right?

If you’ve ever been around a child for more than three minutes in any situation, you’ll witness the power of attention. Kids refuse to be ignored. They are wired for it out of self-preservation. This natural skill happens to work for non-self-preservation attention as well.

Nope, we aren’t begging for candy or video games. You don’t get off that easy.

You are fighting for your life — your true work. This is not just your job. Your job is what you do. Cleaning toilets is a job. Digging holes is a job. Asset management is a job. We’re fighting for our work. Our work is who we are.

There’s no such thing as a smooth ramp to success. This is a fantasy.

But… I’ve created a new piece of content every day for the last three weeks. I don’t have a single view/clap/thumb/watch.

Cool. Do that again for three more weeks. If that doesn’t work, try six more weeks after that. Remember, there’s no smooth ramp. The ramp is a lie. There are small bumps up and deep dips down. Eventually, there’s a hockey stick moment.

We don’t get to pick the hockey stick moment.

This is reality. Welcome to the hockey stick moment. We don’t get to choose it.

The best we can do is practice our craft every day and never let our audience forget we’re still here, doing our best work, to provide them as much value as we can during the lifetime we’re given. This is how the game is played.

Your hockey stick moment is different than mine.

We’ll have more than one of these graphs over the course of our work. After the hockey stick comes another huge dip. This is the pattern of humanity. We press on despite what happens to us and we persevere through the rough spots because we believe in the work so much, not because we’re blinded by the false, easy ramp.

Of the past 38 pieces I’ve written on this platform three have been successful and one caught fire. I write ever day for that one piece.

I’m not in charge of what’s good or not. You, the reader, has that power. All I can do is show up every day. I continue to pound the table, because I can’t imagine doing anything else.

We don’t get to choose our hockey stick moment.

This is a beautiful thing, trust me. It doesn’t feel that way and you probably think I’m an idiot, but if you could choose the moment your work became a success you wouldn’t appreciate it.

For the same reason we suffer we have happiness.

If you sat on a yoga mat all day in a state of bliss you’d hate your life. We need the yin to the yang. We need the dips (and the deep holes) to appreciate the hockey sticks.

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How NOT to be invisible

It’s time to work. Deliberate, targeted work. You are fighting for your life here. Whether you write, paint, code, sing, film, or build — we must practice our craft daily.

Our audience has more options now than ever.

When we’re not sleeping we’re do-ing. Few people have the capacity to just be anymore. This means we’re in a battle for attention. We can’t just build it and hope they come. No one’s coming.

We’ve got to remind our audience we’re not going anywhere — that we’ll do anything for their valuable attention.

We get up. We follow the plan. We do the work every day. Most days will be flat. Some days will be rough. A couple days will be great. And one day will hockey stick. We do the work every day.

This is the only way.

You can’t shortcut yourself to success. You can pay to get a bigger audience, sure, but you’ve got to have the work to back it up. The people who get big audiences before they’re ready usually blow it.

You won’t be a statistic.

You know better.

You know what the goal looks like.

You know the process.

Most days won’t be easy. Most days your mind will fight you from every direction, begging you to stop the madness and keep doing what’s easy and comfortable. When you feel those reactions — the resistance — this is your barometer that you’re on the right path.

We need you to keep creating. There’s too much mediocrity not to.

The daily work is your vaccination against invisibility. Your hockey moment will come. But we need you to show up to get there.

We’re waiting for you.

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Writers: Develop A Vaccination Against Author-Invisibility was originally published in The Writing Cooperative on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.