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Originally published on Medium ↗
An incrementalist approach to developing a creative practice
In the wake of writing The Shelf (a blog post where I advocate shelving projects until it’s the right time for them), I had a few people asking me about how shelving might work as a concrete process. I also found myself asking a pretty simple question: “What projects are right for me at the moment?”
For a while, I’ve been working part-time on purpose, with the intention of using the extra time to work on my own projects. And I have worked on them, but I’ve also purposefully kept them low-key and low-pressure, focusing more on regaining creative confidence than creating a thriving practice (more about that in On creative anxiety…). Because at some level, I’d never really gotten over the issues that plagued me when I wrote Starting Over back in 2016 (I swear that’s probably the last link to a past blog post): worry that the next thing has to be better.
There’s only so far you can go before you have to run at something properly, and I’ve hit that point. As I’ve mentioned in several of those blog posts before, I still need to work on certain skills: finishing and releasing projects, talking about them, and actually building some sort of income.
In general, I’ve hit a point where I need to focus on building a creative practice, and working out what that looks like.
Today, I’m going to outline the approach I’m taking to do just that.
The approach: Momemtum*
Not a typo — momentum just doesn’t have enough m’s.
The system is simple: each month, make a goal for each of the 4 m’s:
- Make: make something. This should involve a release of some kind.
- Market: talk about what you’re making. Have a goal about how you’re going to reach more people
- Monetise: There needs to be a way for people to pay for what you’ve made (or what you’re making next). Have a goal for how you’re going to make that work better
- Measure: Have a metric that you look at. Or revise your existing metrics.
This is strictly an incrementalist approach to building a business/practice. The idea is to get a tiny bit better each month at everything. It also forces you to not ignore the things that creators usually ignore: the business development part of the practice (marketing and monetising).
Forcing a release of some kind each month isn’t completely necessary, and I may drop that requirement at some point, but right now it’s important for me (as mentioned above, finishing things is something I need to work on).
What this looks like
So, we’re a week into May. And I’m working on a May project.
This is what my May goals look like:
Make:
- Create ‘Gotta Get Outta This Space’ — a print, play and post game where you escape a robot uprising on a spaceship, and then send that spaceship to your friend’s houses so they can escape as well
Market:
- Post at least 1 update about the game to social media each week (insta/fb/twitter)
- Blog about this framework (✔), and at the end of the month about progress/next month’s goals
- Send at least 2 emails to the mailing list.
Monetise:
- Implement some sort of “pay what you want” system on the website
- Make a print-on-demand version of the game
- Make sure that I’m keeping track of income properly so that I can pay collaborators easily and effectively.
Measure:
- Measure game website usage
- How far are people getting in the game? Are they doing the ‘post’ part?
What’s as important as what’s here is what isn’t here: the hundreds of things that I’d try to do if this game’s success was vital. Updating my website. Cross-posting my blog posts to my website. Working out how to segment my mailing list. Actually making it easy to find the sign-up to the mailing list. Having clear goals for my measurements. Deciding if this falls under the “SeeThrough Studios” banner (probably), and making a new website for that if it does. Doing a lot more marketing. Any PR. Should I be on Patreon?
Incrementalism says that all you need to do is to work on being a bit better than last month. Which is great, because I really need to not deal with all of that at once.
It’s even more important because this isn’t all that I’m working on. I have some longer-running projects that need to keep going, but which work at a fairly low (up to 1 day per week) commitment level. Those projects will really benefit from the work I do here — by the time they launch, I will have practiced these skills and built some community around my work.
So, at the end of this month, I’ll have another blog post. And hopefully there’ll be a lot of checkmarks next to all of these goals, and a game where you can get outta a space.
I’ve kept this short(er) and sweet(er) (than my normal blog ramblings), but it’s left a lot out. I’ve got more detail on each of the 4 m’s and how I’m wanting to approach them in the medium-term, and I’ve started thinking about how I’m organising my project slate. So let me know in the comments if there’s something you want more detail on — maybe I’ll add a section to the end of month blog post.
