I included this in the Sunday Night Email last night and thought it was worth passing along here too.
“I didn’t ask for this role but I’ll play it. Now go do your best. ‘Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.’ Goethe said that. It’s not too late for you to become a person of substance, Russell. Get my son home safely. You know, I’m glad we spoke”- Elaine, Almost Famous
There are a lot of artists (and people in general) walking around all day wondering: What should I post next? Does this bagel look interesting enough? I haven’t posted anything in six hours, where is something cool? I haven’t publicly reacted to the latest thing, am I too late?
Relieve yourself of ‘what do I post next’
Here’s a rough sketch to save you from the often moment by moment turmoil of what do I post next:
Come up with four categories of posts that are truly important to you. I’ll make some up:
1. You writing music
2. You playing music
3. Your love for trinkets you find at flea markets
4. Your love of mystery novels
If a potential post doesn’t connect with one of these four, it doesn’t get posted (Now you can just enjoy breakfast rather than styling your eggs just so). And since these categories are important to you, you’ll notice more and more things that fall into them in some way and over time you’ll have an endless cache of meaningful posts tucked in your Drafts folder.
So you won’t have to wonder about what to post next. You already have it and it’s already in line with who you are and the story you are telling your audience.
Rather than working on the song like it might go on the record…work on it as though it is going on the record.
If you only work on it as thought it might go on the record and then it does go on the record, you’ll wish you would have worked on it as though it was going on the record.
