“Share your work” is a piece of advice that is given by many creators to people who want to pursue any creative piece of work.

When you write a math exam, you are told to show your work. You are expected to show your work. You’re supposed to show the examiner what steps you took to get to the place that you’ve gotten.

It’s the same with creative stuff. When you make something, it’s good to share the steps you’ve taken to get to that place.

“Showing your work”, therefore, in the world of making stuff, is sharing how you made the thing you made. It’s sharing the steps you took and the things you learnt to make those stuff. It’s sharing the software you used and the gear you needed to make your stuff. It’s sharing the details of everything that you’ve done to get to the final product.

Honestly, this is the kind of content I love to consume. I love learning how someone made something, sometimes more than the thing itself. I love production breakdowns, editing tutorials and everything in between. I love learning the ins and outs of making something and the decisions that went into making the thing. It’s the most entertaining content, in my opinion, but I might be biased (as someone who’s making content myself). 🙂

Why should you share your work?

I think the main reason you should share your work is to teach other people. The best way to teach is to give examples, in my eyes. Showing how to edit videos with your video as an example, or how to make music with your own song as an example is extremely effective.

Secondly, it is competent content in of itself. There’s a reason timeline breakdowns and production videos do so well - it combines entertainment and education (the 2 main parts of a good piece of content) easily and effectively. Behind the scenes of a project are extremely interesting to watch and do extremely well for this reason.

Thirdly, it helps you come up with other ideas. When you reflect on a project that you’ve done, you tend to think more deeply about the decisions you’ve made and the reasons you made those decisions. It makes you understand the work that you do at a deeper level. Honestly, a lot of creating is just brain-spouting: throwing everything at a project and seeing what sticks. Reflecting helps you realize why what worked worked, and what you can do with that information.

The risk with sharing your work

Of course, this is not all sunshine and rainbows.

There’s a big risk that “showing your work” leads to the “showing” part becoming work in of itself. Let me explain.

Let’s say you make short films for a living. So, your work is planning out, producing, directing, shooting, and editing the film that you made. If you’re in the film, you tend to put on a character (maybe just an enhanced version of yourself) while making the film.

Now, let’s say you want to make a behind the scenes video of the film. Now, shooting and editing the behind the scenes also becomes work, and there’s the risk of you playing your character in the behind the scenes too, leading to a loss in the authenticity of the behind the scenes.

This could also lead to burnout, due to the sheer amount of work that you need to do.

Also, you could end up planning your next film around the behind the scenes (if it performs better) rather than the other way around. This isn’t necessarily bad, but there’s a risk of your creative vision diluting or changing just in the pursuit of a better behind the scenes shot; instead of you trying your best to get a good shot for your film.

This week’s updates

Sickness

The last week, I was down with the flu and I had to take some time off from making stuff, and so the blog was delayed by a couple of weeks. Sorry!

I unfortunately couldn’t write the week before too, mainly because I had a ton of schoolwork to complete and I had a lot of obligations to keep up with.

As exam season approaches, there may be a couple breaks (although I really don’t want to take any! Writing is kind of cathartic), so sorry in advance!

The YouTube channel has also been delayed because of this, and I’ve changed the schedule. I forgot how much time it takes to make a video, so now videos will come out every week instead of every day. I’ve finished up a video, and I will upload it on Friday. Keep your eyes out!

Embrace mediocrity

It’s impossible to be incredibly good at everything you do. Most of the time, you will only tend to be good at a couple of things and just mediocre at others.

That’s okay! I guess we all need to embrace mediocrity.

This is something that I tend to struggle with, and I need to work on it. Let’s see how it goes.

Conversation and writing

In a David Perell blogpost, I learnt that writing is not a solo endeavour.

We tend to develop ideas and thoughts based on other things that we read and watch and listen.

In the same boat, speaking to people about ideas you have for blogs helps you articulate that better and gain new insight into the topic you want to write about.

That’s all for this week!

Thanks for reading!

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