Indie Author Weekly

175: Creative process as a solo artist (trusting OTHERS)

• Sagan Morrow • Episode 176

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In this episode, we explore the delicate balance of the creative process when you are a solo artist — Because it’s hard to maintain distance and objectivity when you are working on creative pursuits in a silo! Is it good enough? Is it good at all? Are you conveying what you intend to convey? Even if it IS “good enough,” what interesting improvements can be made? And if you don’t have confidence in it being “good enough,” how is that going to affect the way you share your work with the world?

These are all big questions! 

In our previous episode here on the Indie Author Weekly podcast, we talked about the value and importance of trusting yourself and building that self trust muscle. Tune into episode 174 to check it out — it’s a great episode and includes a 3-part exercise for improving self trust!

So in this episode, let’s talk about a different element of TRUST — trusting other people and bringing them into the creative process when you're a solo artist...

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Hello and welcome to the indie author weekly podcast where I take you on the behind the scenes journey of my adventures as an indie author. I'm your host Sagan Morrow, and I'm an eighth time polyamorous romcom. Author Plus, I've also written several business books for solopreneurs. Let's dive into this episode. Today I want to talk about the delicate balance of the creative process when you are a solo artist, because it's hard to maintain distance and objectivity when you are working on creative pursuits in a silo. Is it good enough? Is it good at all? Are you conveying what you intended to convey? Even if it is good enough? What interesting improvements can be made? And if you don't have confidence in it being good enough? How is that going to affect the way that you share your work with the world? These are all big questions. In our previous episode here on the other weekly podcast, we talked about the value and the importance of trusting yourself and really building that self trust and muscle tune into Episode 174 to check it out. It is a great episode and it also includes a three part exercise for improving self trust. So if you are the type of person who has a negative voice in your head or you experience self doubt as a creative, then you definitely need to check out our previous episode here on the indie author. weekly podcast. With that in mind, for today's episode, let's talk about a different element of trust, trusting other people and bringing them into the creative process when you are a solo artist.
For example, as an author, this can look like getting BETA readers or participating in a writing group or hiring writing coaches or editors. Another example of this in a different area of creativity is my work as a hobbyist burlesque dancer. So when I am not doing my day job essentially of coaching clients on personal fulfillment and solopreneur success and when I am not writing polyamorous romcom novels, I enjoy doing hobby burlesque dancing. And I have done episodes I've mentioned this in the past in previous episodes here on the indie author, weekly podcast, how I recently did a solo my first ever solo dance as a burlesque dancer. I debuted my baby Maverick persona on stage. And that was just a couple months ago that was just back in December 2023.
So it is interesting because as I have developed my dancing skills over the years now that I'm doing it solo, now that I'm doing some solo shows, it's a very different dynamic than when I was done. I have been dancing in groups, especially when the choreography is designed for me by my instructors, these advanced dancers. Now when I'm doing solo dances, I am designing my own choreography. So last night, last night I had a peer review for my upcoming burlesque solo. It is my second solo that I will be doing and dancing it in just a couple of weeks less than two. Oh my goodness, less than two weeks, I will be dancing my second solo as a burlesque dancer. And last night was the first time that I actually presented it to my peers. And I got some great feedback on it. Now it is interesting because my first solo that I ever did as a burlesque dancer, I was part of a class where they knew exactly what I was working on right from the start. Before I even started choreography net. We talked about the concept of the dance and building out the act. I had multiple stages at which point I performed the dance for my instructors and for my classmates, and they gave me feedback on it. But in this case, I am doing instead we don't actually have the solo development class for this semester. So I did not talk about the concept of my dance with anyone. I think I just mentioned it like a couple of weeks ago in class what it actually was and I have not performed in front of everyone. This was the only pure experience pure feedback experience that I am getting on the dance just once and the dance is less than two weeks away. So a very different dynamic in terms of the creative process with getting other people's input and feedback on it.
And the feedback that I got was absolutely fantastic. It was so so helpful. I have a little mini notebook that I write down notes for my burlesque classes. And I wrote multiple pages of notes on the different suggestions that people were saying. And it was so fascinating to hear their inputs because some of their suggestions, were things that when they said them, I was thinking oh my gosh, that is so obvious and clear. How did I not even see that? So for example, at one point in the dance, I remove a belt and I don't really do anything with a belt, I you know, kind of draw attention to it around my waist and then I remove it. And I toss it to the side pretty much immediately. And what several of my peers were seeing and what my instructor was saying as well was that there's so much more that you can do with a prop like a belt. You can really play with it you can feed into different elements of the dance. That simply had not occurred to me. This is something by the way that I find really interesting in my work as a personal fulfillment coach as a solopreneur success coach, because my clients have the exact same experience where we will be talking about something I'll be coaching them on something or we'll be doing some mentorship. And it would be this light bulb that goes off for them and they will just be saying to me Sagan I can't believe that I never saw this before because when you've said this when you've guided me to this realization, it seems so clear and so obvious. Now how did I not see it? But that's the thing. That is really the thing. Well, we are so immersed in our own work. We simply cannot always pull ourselves back to see those things that are so clear and obvious to other people. So this was wonderful to get this feedback from other people and even their thoughts on the concept of the dance. The vibe of it so I am doing it as a pop gun inspired dance. I am dancing to a cover of danger zone. And it was really funny because one of my friends was driving me home and she just she mentioned this kind of throwaway comment, where she just said something about how there was a lot of opportunity and space for me to play with the whole concept of danger in the song and she has not seen Top Gun so she doesn't know the movie and that kind of thing. But she recommended that I could lean into the danger aspect of it and bring more of that sort of feel or vibe into the dance. And when she said that I was just blown away because of course I could do that. What a fantastic idea that I with my sort of blinders on thinking about the movie Top Gun, I simply have not even considered that. So there's really cool, there's really cool elements of it that can come out of chatting with other people and getting their perspective on things.
It's also interesting to see how others perceive our work because we might play with something or try something out. And they might come back to us and suggest Actually, this isn't really who you are. This doesn't quite fit you. One example of this is there was a move that I was doing in my dance, and it was much more it has her more sludge type of element to it has an instructor said whereas my whole by my whole persona as a dancer and I would also say as a writer in my romcoms that I write is much more suggestive. And there's more sort of the sassy feel to it. Maybe some some sexiness to it, but not so much sluttiness I think this laziness is great. And some of my characters in the books that I write are sweaty, but there's not. There's not that same sort of element of vulgarity to the work that I do. And so what my instructor was suggesting was that I changed this move up to make it more suggestive rather than vulgar.
What I love about this is that one of my other classmates does have a very bloody, very vulgar vibe. And so we had this really great conversation all of us in this class about really leaning into your vibe and how there is no no one better than the other or anything like that. It's really about understanding who you are, and what type of feel or atmosphere or vibe you're trying to express. And what you what your persona is all about. And so her if she had the move that I had been using in one of her dances, it would be perfect it would absolutely be an amazing fit. Whereas for me for my dance, it just wasn't quite right.
So that's a really great thing to take into consideration as well. Other people are going to perceive you and be able to see when something is a good fit or feels off and this of course, again relates back to writing as an author, the interesting challenges of doing these types of creative projects on your own. Do you know how others are perceiving you and can you sort of distance yourself from your work to be able to see that as well?
What I find funny about this in any type of work that we do is how we sometimes might have more competence and more self honesty, more self awareness, really about one aspect of our work versus another. For example, because I have a lot of vast experience in writing nonfiction. I have a very good understanding of the quality of my work there. I have been I was a freelance writer for many, many years. I write about 1000 words every single week in my solopreneur diary entries weekly newsletter. I have been doing that for many, many years. I've been a blogger since 2008. And that has involved you know, three times weekly blogging. is involved for many, many years and then it was monthly blogging. Now it's weekly blogging again. I have written articles for magazines and columns for newspaper and all of these different types of things. So there is a lot of experience many, many hours in my craft, writing nonfiction. As a result of that I can very easily very clearly see when I have written something that I believe that I know is good and can be shared with the world versus that's not my best work. So I can look at my work and I can really distance myself from it. This of course again was not always the case. There was questioning there was that question of Is this good enough? Is this any good at all? Will this be helpful to people? But that is not the case anymore? That simply is not the case. I can really understand. Yes, this is good. Or Nope. This is not my best work. Maybe I should sit on this or okay, you know what, this isn't quite my best work but it is still good enough to get that message out there. I can be I'm very, very good at recognizing those differences. Whereas it is much more challenging for me to look at something like my dancing and be able to have objectivity with it. So when I watched the video from my solo that I did it back in December, I look at it and I think to myself, I truly have no idea if this is good or not good.
Like very truly, I will look at videos of myself dancing and it's really difficult to actually understand. Is this good or not good? And if this is decent, is it actually good enough to share with the world? I don't know. So in that case, what I need to really do and what I do is trust in the people around me trust in their feedback. And also trust in my place in this moment in the creative process. As an artist as a burlesque dancer, that this can be shared with the world with much, much more room for improvement, and I can be proud of myself for where I'm at right now. Even if I don't know if it's any good.
I have definitely gotten a lot better at this when it comes to writing fiction where I can have more distance from it. But I do not currently have the consistency, the same consistency that I have with nonfiction as I do with it with writing fiction, and I don't have the sheer amount of time that I have, you know the number of hours I've put into writing nonfiction, that doesn't translate that's not the same number of hours that I have done in writing fiction. So that question of Is this good or not good. Sometimes still crops up? I would say it's less a question of Is this good or not? Good. And much rather about? Is this good enough? That is much more my question when it comes to writing fiction.
And that's that's a good thing because that indicates that I have progressed down the path. So when it comes to my dancing because I'm so very new with it with doing these solos. I do question Is this good or not that I don't actually know. Whereas when it comes to writing fiction, I can look at it and I can go okay, I know that this is decent, but is it good enough to share with the world? So that's kind of the next stage of process. And again, when it comes to writing nonfiction, I'm very, very clear on is this is this good? Yes. And I know that right away or is this good enough? Okay, yes.
The last point that I want to make in this episode on our topic, really building off of that previous episode on the concept of self trust, is that you do not need to agree with other people's perspectives. So there is tons and tons of value in hearing other people out and listening to what they have to say and sparking ideas from that. But you don't need to agree with absolutely everything that they tell you.
A really great exercise in this is if you go to something like Goodreads, and you check out a popular book, scroll down to the reviews section. scan through the reviews. You will see such wide ranging contradicting opinions and that is so beautiful and fascinating.
Everyone has their own views on things everyone has their own perspectives and opinions. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. But it does not mean that you will necessarily agree with all of the opinions.
Here's where it comes in handy when you are a solo creative, bringing in other people's perspectives and their opinions can really open your mind to fresh new takes it can contribute to your creative process. Right? Because you can see their their suggestion their ideas or opinions. And you can look at that and go oh my gosh, that's an amazing idea. Yes, I want to run with that. I am going to take that that feedback. And I'm going to implement that because you are 100% right and I love it. Or you can take their suggestions and run with them in a different direction altogether. So maybe their thoughts, their feedback, their insights will actually spark a new concept, a new idea that you can take and move forward with that.
Or another really cool thing that can happen is that you can hear them out and listen to their ideas. And then you can leave their ideas to the side. Because in that case, you might realize that you are actually very steadfast in your own opinions. Sometimes by hearing someone out and they listen to what they have to say hearing their opinions. What it can do is it can reinforce your own convictions that you might not have even realized that you had and that is also very, very useful.
There's a lot of value then, in having that opportunity to engage with others when you are a solo artist. The trick is to not force yourself into that box. If it's not quite the right fit. You can try it on for size and then you can set it aside if you like.
When you are taking in those opinions. It's also so good to go into it with an element of curiosity. So if they are if you were speaking with other people and listen to their opinions, if you have the opportunity to ask them. What about this makes you say that? Why did you feel that? What would you suggest instead moving forward? Those are all really good things to take into consideration.
In a situation such as getting pure feedback, peer reviews with dancing, the class is already set up in such a way that when people are giving feedback, they really explained this is what was going on in my head, which is why I think x y Zed about what you did, which is why it worked really well or why there's gonna be room for improvement. And if there is room for improvement, here's what could be really cool to play with in a different way. One of the things that that has popped up a couple of multiple times actually in my own peer reviews is that I have received feedback that I have a lot of really great musicality in my performances. That is something that I might not even recognize that is there. So hearing that kind of positive feedback can also help to reinforce and helped me to lean into that as one of my strengths that I did not even see was there. So you can really use things in different ways.
And again, it might be built into some of those dynamics and some of those relationships if you hire an editor if you hire a writing coach, in those types of capacities, they are going to give you a very fulsome type of answer in their opinion. They're going to explain the reasoning why and all of that. If you are in a writing group that is not as structured, you might need to probe a little bit further and ask more questions to really understand the nuances of why they're thinking and feeling the way that they are so that you can get to the root of okay, if I wanted to have someone experienced this with my creative work, but instead they're way over in a different direction. How can I close that gap? So again, get curious about it. It is all about the opportunity in learning something. That is what it's really about. There's so much value in trusting others and trusting in that creative process and engaging with them. When you are a solo artist. You don't have to internalize all of it. You do not have to take every single opinion and act on all of it. You can leave some aside, but listening to it and bringing it in and considering it is so so valuable.
All right, that my friend as a wrap up for today's episode, access the shownotes at Sagan morrow.com/podcast. And if you would like to continue this conversation, share your thoughts about this episode on Twitter or Instagram. My handle is at Sagan lives. Please take two minutes to rate and review and do either weekly on Apple podcasts. And by the way I do take requests submit your questions and podcast topic ideas at Sagan morrow.com/question so I can keep them in mind for future episodes here on the indie author weekly podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in. And I will see you next time for another episode of indie author weekly

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