Audience

Austin Kleon is the author of Steal Like an Artist and Show Your Work, two really cool little books on the creative process that probably relieve me of the responsibility of trying to say the same things in Lichtenbergianism: procrastination as a creative strategy. Yet I persist.

Last Thursday, he tweeted this image:

(He's a prolific and witty tweeter, and he's young and handsome, and he's generous: when I asked for permission to use this image, he immediately say yes.  So there's that.)

Stop reading me — for the moment, please — and read his notebook scribble again.  And again.  And again.

This is the essence of the Lichtenbergian Precept of AUDIENCE: you're not writing/painting/gardening/et al. for huge adoring crowds.  MOMA is not your audience (as Art & Fear puts it). Your uncomprehending family is not your audience.  Steven King's audience or Dan Brown's audience or Jo Rowling's audience is not your audience.

(Dare I say that Austin Kleon's audience is not my audience?  They probably are, actually.)

Create for your audience. 

Create for your audience. 

Create for your audience. 

Don't do it to please them.  Don't do it to gain them.  Do it for them.  Make the Thing That Is Not because you must, not because you want an audience.

Simple, really.

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