Are You Neglecting Your Writing in Favour of Growing a Following?

"Don't let sharing your work take precedence over actually doing your work." - Austin Kleon

This Substack was inspired by this piece I wrote a few days ago about Austin Kleon’s marvellous book called Show Your Work. I had a number of comments and restacks and many identified with his point about not letting the sharing of your work take precedence over actually doing your work. And it reminded me of my own writing/social media journey and how I did exactly that.

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I started writing fiction in the run-up to getting married back in the very early 2000s. I would sit at a rickety white computer desk and bash out words on my boxy computer. I didn’t get very far, I was obsessed with making the first three chapters perfect (but that’s another story for another time) before my life was taken over with the actual wedding, a honeymoon, moving house and my first child.

From 2007 onwards, I resumed writing with vigour. I created a blog, finished the first draft of my novel, got my first job as a writer, got some articles published, and then my second writing job before signing up with a literary agent and writing a book proposal about cakes in romantic fiction.

When my book proposal didn’t get taken on by any publishers (with one of the reasons cited for the rejection being that I didn’t have a TV platform) I decided to create a social media platform as an alternative to TV (the words “that’ll show ‘em” bouncing around in my head). I created an Instagram account and began posting pictures of flowers, my dog, cakes and the occasional chicken. I didn’t really have a plan, or a theme, in mind. This is my third photograph on Instagram of a blurry Swiss roll and a cornflower. It got one like. And yes, that was me liking my own photograph.

The above grid is from my very early Instagram feed. Before I was overcome by the urge to create more and more on Instagram. The pictures are occasionally blurry, taken in bad lighting (at least the cake shots are), and often zoomed right in - all big no-nos in the Instagram world. The photos didn’t really have anything to do with my original idea and book proposal of cakes inspired by fiction. But scrolling through them now I see they tell a story of my life in the second year of living in the countryside with a puppy, chickens, and ducks. I wanted to learn more about nature and cooking using ingredients from our land - such as the blackberry curd I made from my chicken eggs and wild blackberries - and this comes through in my feed.

I know exactly when I started to become more obsessed with my Instagram photos. I was writing recipes on my blog and sharing them on other websites. I’d started to study photography and realised you couldn’t take photos at night with yellow kitchen lighting. These penguin biscuits I made with a white background were taken with my Nikon professional camera - uploading to Instagram actually made them blurry because Insta in those days would compress the pictures.

From then on my photos would start to pop with colour and I became obsessed with the platform. It was no longer a quick snap, but I had to create the right set-up, lighting, and negative space around the object in question. Also, as you travel further up my feed, I started to think about how the photo would look on my grid. If I did a lighter one, I’d do a darker one next, then another lighter one, so each one would pop on my feed and if a potential follower looked at my top nine photographs there would be a chequerboard effect.

At the time I was sharing photos of cakes and books and the outdoorsy nature stuff. I even dragged my ‘white wood background’ outside to the chickens so I could get a lighter picture of them eating an apple.

It was starting to become all for the likes.

It worked though. My likes started to increase and I got 100 likes for a photo instead of seven.

But then (and I’ve just had a moment here as I write this with my head in my hands in sheer despair at what I did) I would take photographs of me writing, my writing notebooks…or use the captions to talk about writing…

Yet all of this was staged for Instagram.

(Yesterday whilst chatting to my mum I said I never used swear words in my writing despite using them liberally in real life. BUT I really want to insert the F-word here because of how annoyed I am with myself.)

For example:

My Instagram feed

I took hours to create these photographs. Entire days would be devoted to the staging of them. And it worked. The field maple one, for example, received over 2000 likes. This one even ended up in the Telegraph magazine.

But it was all for show. It was all to grow my Instagram feed.

Did I continue writing my chicken story as detailed in the Instagram photographs? No, I didn’t. That could’ve been a confidence thing, or it could be because it had run its course on Instagram.

Yes, I’m shaking my head too.

I gained more and more followers. Then this photo had over 3000 likes.

It was of my novel-in-progress and how I was going to document its edit. And yes, of course, I did this for a while on Instagram and YouTube but this fizzed out as well.

As I look at it now I think, did I create that grid in my notebook for my novel - or for photographing on Instagram?

Now don’t get me wrong, I actually enjoyed creating the photos. This one I think is one of my all-time favourites:

But it would take me so long to do. And, as I have repeatedly said, I wrote these little snippets for Instagram - simply to get likes, not as part of a long-term writing project. My actual long-term project was festering in a drawer covered in dust.

You know, I would get to the point of having to collect my children from school and I’d wonder just what I’d done with my day. All I had to show for it was a photo on Instagram. I hadn’t edited a chapter of my novel, I hadn’t written one thousand words of my memoir. I hadn’t written a blog post. I’d just created a photo for likes.

I’m not complaining about the creativity I used on Instagram I’m simply frustrated that what I was doing wasn’t part of a creative project that I was continuing offline as well as on.

I was treating it as separate from my actual writing.

Why didn’t I continue with these nature writing journals for example? Why did I stop? Was it simply because I wasn’t getting the likes anymore? And why didn’t I expand the project? Make it into a nature journal on a blog or something like that. As I look at it now with fresh eyes there are numerous directions I could’ve gone with it. But I didn’t. Because I was simply chasing the likes.

Re-reading Show Your Work by Austin Kleon I was drawn to his quote about letting the sharing of your work taking precedence over actually doing your work.

It’s a point also mentioned in The Unpublished Podcast by Amie McNee and James Winestock. In the episode called ‘creatives don’t always have to be visible’ published on April 17th 2023, James said:

“People think they have to create their social media first before their art. They’re neglecting their art in favour of growing a following.”

- James Winestock on The Unpublished Podcast.

Amie agreed. She replied:

“Do you want to be an artist? Or do you want to be a content creator?”

-Amie McNee on The Unpublished Podcast

I was actually using up all my creativity on thinking of ideas and then creating for social media. So by the time it came to writing or editing my novel, or my memoir about keeping chickens, I had no creativity left. My well was empty.

What would have been better would be to put these writing projects first - and then take aspects of them to create the photographs.

“I feel you won’t be making good content if you’re not making good art at the same time. You’re not going to have anything inspiring or to fill your cup from or have any interesting processes to talk about. The content should be easy because you’re making art - it’s a continuation.”

-James Winestock

There is so much emphasis on having an audience now for writers. So it’s understandable that the creation of a platform became important.

As creatives, we looked for advice on how to build our platform and I think many of us took the advice from online gurus whose advice wasn’t actually right for us. It worked for influencers or online content creators. But for creatives like us who are writers, photographers, artists and more - it took us in the wrong direction. We put the emphasis on the wrong thing.

The following quote is from Kelly (who, incidentally crochets gorgeous ducks) as a reply on my Austin Kleon Substack piece:

“The distinction between creating content as an influencer and creating as a creative who is documenting and sharing their work isn’t one I have seen spelled out before but it’s such an important and useful point to remember.”

-Kelly from From My Hook Substack

Kelly is absolutely right. We have to remember who we are, and what we’re trying to achieve. Put our efforts into our core creative projects first before we share on social media.

Our creative energy is limited and wildly overestimated. What’s more important? Our writing project? Our crocheting project? Our photography? Our sketching? Or, creating posts for social media?

What’s the answer? Well, Austin Kleon has written an entire book about sharing your art on social media in order to build an audience. Amie McNee advocates the same - her art influences what she puts out on Instagram.

I learned the hard way - wasting a few years and lots of creative energy.

Use your core projects to create your social media posts. It saves time, mental energy and encourages you to create art first so you have something to share. Plus, as a bonus, you may even build your audience at the same time.