Episode 292 of the CMP, a Creativity Matters Podcast
In this episode of the CMP, all about sharing. This show started with some thinking about contextualizing a share… hashtagging a share (#whyIshare). The hashtagging is in here. It’s fun. It’s also tongue-in-cheek in places, but there is validity to the questions raised and to thinking about how and why we share and even what we hope to gain from the moment of sharing. Listen in for a pile o’ thoughts on sharing, including: Why we share. Why we don’t share. What makes sharing hard. What makes sharing rewarding. Why sharing can help us lead more fulfilled creative lives. How sharing can push our creativity forward. What sharing has to do with accountability. How sharing helps us forge relationships and connections. The flipside of this conversation, of course, is “commenting” and learning to deal with comments (or no comments) gracefully. I am pushing those topics off to another show because these are big and layered and tricky issues that we navigate, day to day, in every different social space and stream, as we share our work on comment on work we see shared by others. We could have many, many conversations about sharing and commenting, and still have more to say! This show is a start, just a tip into this iceberg of what I feel like is a very important conversation, no matter where you are in your creative journey, what your personality type is, or how confident you feel you are with sharing.
This discussion led me down a side path about why always couching your sharing in self-deprecating comments can be a bad approach to sharing (and transforms the equation between sharer and receiver) (and why, at the same time, being able to honestly make a statement about your work is also necessary). I edited out most of this discussion… but it is still a thread worth thinking about.
For those of you wanting to go out and read more about sharing, start with Show Your Work!. (My discussion in this episode is not based on this book by Austin Kleon, but I have checked it out, taken comfort in the sheer existence of this little yellow and black book in my stack, will definitely be reading it, and hope you will, too.) (If you haven’t already, you will also want to check out Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative. And follow Austin in your favorite streams for ongoing inspiration.)
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