There's a piece of advice that I heard a long time ago, maybe about 4 or 5 years ago now, that said "push publish more often." The idea being that the more things you submit out into the world, the more chance that you'll find the audience that you're looking for.
That didn't make sense to me at first. After all, as a consumer of stories and media, I often make a wholesale judgment of a creator based upon the first work I consume. So it would seem to me that you would need to make sure that everything you put out into the world was the best possible version you could make it. That's a perspective held by a lot of people who don't make stuff, and a perspective held by the big gatekeeper players, who have appointed themselves tastemakers.
But then I started thinking of it from a more practical perspective. Let's say I sold t-shirts. If I only had one color T-shirt in one size, my capacity to sell t-shirts is limited to people who like that color. And are that size. If I was trying to open a t-shirt shop and said that I was trying to get be perfect t-shirt, the one that would define me as a t-shirt maker, people would think I was stupid.
I've tried my best to improve upon that over the last few years and publishing more things. I think I would have kept secret before. I release short stories I write on the Patreon. But I certainly haven't done the best I possibly could with this.
It's not just being judged under my ability as a creator and writer. I think it's also a fear of being judged on my taste. Our taste is what defines what we determine as good are, and it's by meeting. Our own taste that week decide to put something out into the world. These days I'm not worried about whether I've still fully portrayed the thing I was trying to portray. I worry that people will think that my taste is garbage, and that I'm trying to add garbage to the world.
I think I need to get over that. One of the best things about the podcast is that we only get one try at it. Sure, I can edit it a bit, but there's only so much I could really do if I wanted to drastically change how something came out. Out. And since the podcast is so far, the most widespread success that I've encountered, I should use that as feedback that people enjoy the same things I enjoy. Which of course also makes sense, because if people didn't enjoy the same things that I enjoyed, those things wouldn't exist to begin with.
I feel like I'm writing in circles now. It all boils down too something I retweeted the other day: there are only two writing problems. Not knowing what to say. And knowing what to say, but being afraid to say it.
I think it's time to publish more often.
PS: please excuse any strange word choices or transpose words. I dictated this while walking the dog.