During the month of April, I passed my three-year anniversary of having this blog, which is also the three-year anniversary of publicly announcing I want to be an author. It is a pretty big milestone and whilst I don’t think you should base creativity on figures, it’s also important to celebrate them when they arise because they can show you where you’ve come from and remind you where you’re going.
To an outside observer, other than having more projects to my name, it looks like very little has changed. For the most part, that’s how it is to be an author. I have got exciting things simmering away in the background, but because they’re in the background, it doesn’t appear like I’ve got much going on. That is what it’s like for lots of writers, keeping their projects hidden or private even though they would love nothing more than to show the world they are creating and writing and making things happen. That’s where faith plays a big part in writing, faith in yourself and your abilities as well as faith being required by readers too. In writers not being able to talk about new projects or trajectories, readers must have faith that, even though they cannot always see what is being created, something is being created nonetheless. Patience and trust are a massive factor, especially when so much of what we do is in the background, unseen and unheard.
If I didn’t have faith in myself, I would have given up on this blog a long time ago. There have certainly been times where I’ve wondered if I should keep blogging and writing posts, if I should have this website when I have so little to my name and it feels like speaking into the void is possibly worth more time and effort than I have to spare.
That’s where I have to keep my faith. Although there are days where doubts about the future and the path I’m walking are very present, I must trust in myself and what I want. As I have faith in myself, I must believe that what I’m working on, although mostly in the background now, it won’t always be that way. That belief has kept me going for three years and will keep me going for another thirty. Hopefully even longer.
Now, what does this all have to do with my three-year anniversary? Well, it’s made me reflect on the changes (that are mostly in the background) I’ve gone through as an author in the three years that I’ve had this blog, and it’s also made me think about milestones and the weight we put on them.
Basing creativity on milestones like these can be dangerous. If your motivation shifts towards wanting certain milestones, it can alter the very heart of what you’re creating, making the truth in what you’re creating shift to something murky, perhaps even incoherent. It’s true that we share things because we want engagement and we want people to resonate with it, but creating should come from love, passion, a need to make something. Milestones should follow that truth and they should absolutely be celebrated, but if the goal is to reach a milestone, what’s the heart of what you’re making? There are milestones that you may never reach, but you should celebrate what you achieve and your perseverance rather than being utterly disappointed a certain goal or figure wasn’t met.
That’s certainly not to say goals aren’t important; we need to set goals so we have a reason to persevere. The finite difference is hard to articulate but ultimately it boils down to what your reason is for writing. Are your goals to achieve a certain amount of sales, a certain number of followers, a certain amount of years of dedication? Or are your goals to tell this story, to share these characters, to create something simply because you believe it is something that needs to be created? There isn’t anything wrong with being proud of the figures that you achieve, but if your focus is all around figures, your reason for creating shifts, and if the heart of your creation shifts, then what you’re really trying to say won’t be as clear, and you may even lose your enjoyment of it too. I believe intention can often be seen between the lines of a piece of art, and if an audience can see that the drive behind a story isn’t always clear, being able to resonate with it is much more difficult.
Does that mean you should never chase milestones? Absolutely not. But it shouldn’t be your entire drive. As I said above, it can be a finite difference at times, knowing whether you’re chasing a dream or the milestone that dream might bring, but the soul of whatever you’re creating should be a drive to create. Sometimes that drive is mixed in with wanting a career, wanting to be seen, wanting whatever you make to be meaningful to someone, but I think when they mix together in volumes that are too heavy on one side, particularly the side of milestones, you might lose your passion for it. It will always be true that there will be times where you must persevere despite your drive weakening because that’s sometimes how projects get their endings. But if you lose your passion because you become too focused on the numbers, you could lose your love for creating entirely, and that’s a real tragedy. Create because you want and need to, not because you think it might bring you glory, fame, or numbers (all those things can go away in a heartbeat, but the beauty in creating can stay with you forever).
Whilst it is true that I believe milestones can be a dangerous thing to focus on, I am still happy and proud to have been committed to this blog for three years. I can wholeheartedly acknowledge that there are goals I haven’t reached, but I know that not achieving certain milestones isn’t the end of the road for me. So I keep writing and I keep going with this blog even as things change because I know, ultimately, what I want. And I’m going to get there. I might hope it takes only a year, but even if it takes ten, I want to always make sure that the reason I write is because I simply need to. There are, of course, milestones I want to reach, but as long as I create for the reasons that bring me joy, then I won’t let those milestones become my only focus.
When it comes down to it, what makes you happy when you’re creating? Maybe for some people, it is the figures, but for the people who find a simple joy in or a need to create, I hope that will stay with you forever, whatever milestones you might pass along the way.
Robyn x
R. A. Howard 