The balance of appeal and authenticity in creative work.
I've started to realize the medium matters more than words ever will. I find it both frustrating and liberating.
People encourage their artsy friend who paints, their photographer friend who sells prints, and their musical friend's band. But when it comes to writing? People think anyone should be able to do it. Even though I've self-published something like 450,000 words in the last 18 months, it's all been completely digital. I've been thinking about how differently it might've been perceived if I'd been printing my words instead.
Would that suddenly place me into the painter or photographer category of artsy friend?
Yeah, probably.
I'm seeing a widespread indifference to digital writing. I don't think it's just because of AI—I think it largely has to do with the source. Because people will pay for curated content from The Atlantic, Harper's or The New York Times... they just seem far less likely to when it's from an individual (even with the rise of platforms like Substack).
The exception seems to be when digital writing comes from an individual who also offers physical products. And I have a theory as to why.
- digital writing is marketing.
- physical writing is art.
When the internet made it possible for everyone to jot and send anything, anytime, the value of writing changed almost instantly. That's why the medium matters so much—where and how writing is distributed.
We've come to believe writing's use is for describing the thing worth paying for. After 15+ years in email marketing, I've watched us all come to associate digital writing with promotion; consciously or not. Think of how billboards became magazine ads and then morphed into sponsored social media posts. Product placement expanded to include influencer marketing. And all of it keeps trying harder and harder to blend in with entertainment so we'll actually pay attention.
I don't know what the future of digital distribution looks like. But I do know that writing these snippets each day is helping me uncover a much clearer direction than any other personal development system or self-help strategy I've experimented with over the last decade.
And so I write.
Tomorrow, I’ll write some more. Maybe someday soon I'll make physical copies of my writing available, too.
Our Daily MAP Year Prompt
66/365
What's your favorite kind of art to consume? To create? Do you support your favorite art? Do you feel supported?
onward.
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