To all the creative projects I've loved before

Thank you for what you taught me, where you took me, and how you helped me grow in resilience to keep making stuff no matter who shows up to applaud it

I recently implemented the world’s worst marketing plan. And somehow, it’s actually working.

When I started my career my full-time job was a marketing position while I worked on my first freelance writing project with Thomas Nelson Publishers. At the time I was pretty bummed about needing a full-time job because writing was my thing. I wanted to fully dive in and felt like having another job was holding me back. But that marketing background ended up serving me well in my writing and coaching life later on.

I definitely know how to market and sell something which a lot of authors don’t realize is part of the gig even with a traditional publishing team on your side.

After my tough pregnancy and traumatic birth with my son I didn’t go back to work like I had originally planned to. For a while, I wondered if I had forever lost this creative part of myself.

Like anyone going through a difficult season or a big life change, sometimes our roles shift and some of our hopes and dreams shift too. I wasn’t sure what to make of the wrestling between new roles and old dreams inside of me. But I still felt this longing to make something out of it all.

"Creativity is a natural outflow of our life with God."-Dallas Willard

Even when I want to let go of this part of my identity, I can’t shut it off.

So I started recording a podcast. From a business perspective, it isn’t a super linear move for me. Starting a podcast about writing to boost my coaching business would make sense. Or shifting gears to a podcast about faith and creativity to help me continue to grow my newsletter would definitely impress a publisher.

But there I was, just recording into a mic from Amazon at my desk during nap times telling stories about the season that I couldn’t make sense of—my pregnancy and my son’s birth.

After creating the project I felt really proud of it. The perfectionist in me could still fiddle around with lots of things but I have a finished podcast with incredible guests, thoughtful content, and I knew I needed to actually put it out in the world.

I got stuck on the marketing. I don’t have a lot of free time. I squeeze my writing into the margins of my day and it feels like I’m constantly stuffing a suitcase with too many things and sitting on it praying the zipper will close.

I knew if I was going to release the podcast it would take another month at least just to prepare and execute a well thought out marketing plan. Then, I would need to get back on my social media accounts. I have always done what the publishers and book world marketing gurus say to do but with this everyone who I talked to said, what if this time you just didn’t do that?

A lot of prayer and thought went into this. But ultimately, I wanted to tell this story, and I wanted the thing I created to speak for itself without the pressure to shout from the rooftops this matters to me please let it matter to you too!

So I published the podcast.

I told people about it one week before and then I just started hitting publish. At first, it was super anticlimactic and disappointing. I cringed at the lack of marketing and thought to myself it may be another flop. (I have lots of creative flops.)

I started to panic and realize how much this project mattered to me. I didn’t want all that work to just get no response did I? I wrestled with the marketing ideas I had all over again but then decided to stick to what I was doing.

Just this once—what if I just let the work exist and see what happens?

Ironically, after years of creating thoughtful projects with hopeful marketing plans this is not a flop. To be fair, some of the things I call flops were actually pretty solid and others may not deem them to be a flop but I have pretty high standards.

According to the podcast gurus, it seems the milestones of downloads this podcast has exceeds expectations. Somehow, I’m already in the top 5% of podcasts one week in and without a marketing plan of any kind.

To me it’s all super ironic because I’ve spent so many years praying for breakthrough in my career. I’ve always loved writing but I’ve felt like I’ve never hit a lucky break like other people do. I compare myself to the person with the one viral YouTube video that leads to a book deal or the girl who bought her following a few years ago so a publisher thinks she has a devoted following.

My internal creative wrestling often comes down to this though—I don’t want to be famous. Of course, I want people to read my work or hear my words and like what I make.

But ultimately, I like what I make. And I know God delights when I make things. So I keep making things—flop or not.

"Creativity itself doesn’t care at all about results—the only thing it craves is the process."

-Elizabeth Gilbert

I actually think creatively the more flops you have the more likely your odds are to land on something that people really like. Because every flop teaches you something.

This isn’t even technically my first podcast. I recorded a full season of a different one that I never released because I decided I just didn’t like it that much myself. It was fine it just didn’t need to be out in the world. But because I followed that creative craving to make it I learned how to use all the technology so when this idea came to me I could hit the ground running.

When I told people I was working on a podcast people kept telling me the technology would be the hardest part. I kept telling them it wasn’t—I knew how to work it all already from hours of figuring it out for a different creative project I never released.

In a way, I guess this is a love letter to all my former flops. They weren't ever really flops. They were lessons, they were longings, they were stories that needed to be told.

"You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories.”

-Anne Lamott

To all the creative projects I’ve loved before—thank you for what you taught me, where you took me, and how you helped me grow in resilience to get up, dust myself off, and keep making stuff no matter who shows up to applaud it.

An unedited dimly lit pic of me recording during my son’s naptime in my makeshift office.

P.S. I guess I’m a podcaster now!

Episode one “I didn’t think it would happen to me” is about optimisim bias, naming trauma, and radical acceptance.

Episode two “What if my body wasn’t made to do this?” is about experiencing shame when we experience cognitive dissonance over the messages we hear about faith and our bodies versus the lived experiences that can create shame.

I would be honored if you listen or pass it along to a friend. Over 45% of women experience birth trauma—if you aren’t in the 45% you probably love someone who is or will be. Sometimes the best way to love someone is to just listen. (: