What do I mean by that? Simple. Nobody cares that we wrote a thing, that we created art out of twenty-six measly letters, that we made a world out of weird little markings on a page. Our family and close friends may care, (and let’s be honest, that’s a big may) but the rest of the world doesn’t give a crap. So it’s our job as the creator to make them, or at least try to make them, care.
If we’ve published something, whether it’s a paperback, an e-book or a short story, whether it’s at a bookstore, on our website or on any of the other rapidly expanding writing platforms that exist, we should be proud of it. Tell people about it, brag about it even, because if we don’t care about our work, nobody else will either.
Now that being said, we shouldn’t go on and on about our writing. Just let people know we’ve created a thing and it’s out there for public consumption if they’re interested. Keep it simple, keep it light. We can’t force them to be interested in our creation, but we can let them know what we’ve done and that we’re proud of it (even if way deep down inside we think we could have done better, and will do better, but we’re still jumping for joy because by George, we finished something, and it’s not complete and utter garbage and even if it was we still stuck with something long enough to write the end on it even if maybe it’s not the end of it in our heads and—)
Whoa. Had to pull myself out of that rabbit hole with forceps. Where was I?
Okay, right, being proud of our accomplishments.
Not cocky or arrogant, just acknowledge that we were tough enough to see a project through to the end and brave enough to put it out in the world. That deserves to be bragged about. We need to be our own fans first, because if we won’t ride our own creative train, we can’t expect anyone else to jump on board either. I can’t remember what children’s show it was (maybe Barney?), but they said it best, “sharing is caring.” So let’s go share the heck out of our creations because we care about them enough to want to make the world care too.