Just because I like a piece of writing does not mean it is the best thing I can produce. Just because my editor cannot see my vision does not mean they are myopic.
Last month, we spoke about ignorance and how we can leverage it to be better writers and creatives.
This edition, I want us to look at ways our creativity dies a sudden death.
I have been around the mental health conversation long enough to hear and see some level of activism and one of the disadvantages of it is that people are quick to excuse bad habits under “traumatic response”. Baby, I love you but I am not about to end up in therapy because you will not get your acts together. Let us set this record straight!
Among writers, it is the pressure to always have something deep going on in a piece of writing to show connection to society. The problem with this pressure is that we are beginning to create poor work laced with huge emotions (that feel superficial).
We must write for our time but we must also write from who we are. When the conversation is no longer a hot button topic, would we remember you were once creative?
In the fashion industry, there is something called a trend. The Cambridge dictionary defines a trend as a general development or change in a situation or in the way that people are behaving. With trends, you go in the prevalent direction. The reason you don’t write in Elizabethan English is because it’s no longer trendy. Yet, we still read and study Shakespeare!
What is it about our trendy writing that is murdering our art? It is too generic! It has no presence (and I speak to myself). A few years back, I was told of a poetry compilation that launched and upon reading it, first it was the same sad theme, but next were the letters, no flow, no figures of speech, nothing. The anthology felt like it was slapped together in one weekend.
Our Problems
We’ve traded work for ease.
When an editor reviews our work, we simply walk up to the next one who just wants money. When a publisher highlights an error or a lack of connection, we simply publish it ourselves. We have an I-will-do-it-myself mindset. Yes, these people can be annoying gatekeepers of the industry. Yet, there are people who sincerely care about the craft. 3 editors, 10 reviewers, and 20 readers can’t possibly be all mad.
Yes, your work has an audience and you might have to find them but you need to be open to the assessment that says “this is crap”.
The first time an editor scrutinized my work, I remembered questioning if I knew what I was doing. A few years later, I let another editor review a 12-line poetry of mine and after about five or six reviews, I remember reading it and seeing my work clearly without all the embellishments I used to cover my fear.
We cannot be creatives who fear the work of creativity. Yes, sell your work and make a truckload of money but you best create something that won’t be gone too soon.
We want to constantly produce bestsellers
Best sellers many times are not the result of the writing but the result of the marketing team. A great marketing plan puts your book, your poem, your play, your song in the right bookshops, on the right shows, the right stages and on the best streaming platforms. But after the marketing team has done their work and the sales team has received the check and your publisher has mailed you your money, then comes the real results – the people’s review.
Were people tricked into buying? Was this a waste of time? Was this poorly edited? Did the marketing team forget to tell us there were many loopholes in the work?
If you watch movies, you’ve seen advertisements for the sequel of a movie you loved. With your excitement, you bought tickets and even got extra for your friends only to watch the entire storyline get murdered in this “sequel”. The likelihood that they almost ruined your favourite movie is high. The likelihood that you will not trust their next advertisement is higher.
Dear Affluent Author, it’s okay to release your work when you don’t trust it to be a bestseller. Just don’t trick people into thinking this is better than anything you’ve ever made.
We always want to create on trend
A bane of content creation in 2024 are trends. Yet, trends are the reason the most unlikely artists succeed; a poem read on Instagram draws on two million listeners, an extract of a story read on TikTok drives a thousand people to check out the author and even mass distribute pirated copies, etc. The name of anyone can go viral overnight.
Yet, the night does pass and people want more. Unfortunately, the trend that sold us to the people cannot keep us with the people as human experiences are constantly changing.
Dear Affluent Author, I beg you to please explore other genres of writing like I’ve said in previous editions but please also be consistent. Be consistent in language, in persona, in style, in delivery – choose your consistency. Let us find your work in fifty years-time and study the peculiarities of it. Create work younger writers can sit down to deconstruct and reconstruct years from now. If you merely write for social media, your work will be gone too soon.
For example: If you write an anthology about grief, people in a happy place will nod and walk away yet someone grieving would feel seen. However, they would not always be grieving which means your anthology may not be needed by that person in six months but you would have created something that almost everyone at one point can relate to.
Now that you know, do better. Write and market it to posterity.
As you write this month, stay powerful and profitable. Cheers!!!
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Read – Work Your Ignorance – Affluent Authors Column – Liza Chuma Akunyili
