SHARING YOUR WORK – SCARY TIMES, FUN TIMES

Focus: Sharing, audience, and letting it be finished, one way or another

At some point, you want to send your work outward. Not to be approved of — but to be shared. To let go…This can be quiet. Small. Informal. It doesn’t have to mean public performance. it can be a friend or another artist or creative that you trust. I have a few readers when I’m done with a novel but I know – at this point in my experiences – not to give it away before I’m done. The risk is that if you share the work when you are experimenting or simply being creative, the input from others stops you from being true to your own story or vision for whatever it is you are doing. 

Sharing is not the same as getting edited or critiqued, it’s best done as an act of connection. 

Inspiration

Khalil Gibran wrote about work as love made visible.
bell hooks talked about offering rather than proving.
Albert Wendt reminds us that stories shape lives — including our own.

The first time I shared one of my watercolors, oh boy, I didn’t really know why I did and it felt risky. I was staking my new creative output on feedback because I was sitting in a caravan in rural New Mexico with no-one creative around, feeling cut off. I needed some kind of response. I liked what I’d done but…I was confident. Yet I knew this was all new to me. Sure, I’d tried a few watercolor paintings before, well, some twenty or thirty years ago, and I’d used them to give color to my cartoons but that was about it. This time, I’d decided that 2025 was to be the year I took classes online and really focused on art, on watercolors specifically. (This year, 2026 is to be mostly about abstracts and acrylics.) 

Well, I had painted a few smaller pieces after watching YouTube as you do and posted to Instagram…and yes, the dopamine rush of friend’s encouragement was brilliant! I needed it, or rather, I craved it. Dopamine hit = success. Since then, I still post most of the paintings online but now it’s more of an accountability. I’m sharing to encourage others to try something new. I’d like us all to know that exploring more is a good thing, pushing out against our own confines is healthy. And yes, it connects us. I’ve built new friendships based around painting, taken new courses, found what I like to do – in my case, it’s to tackle a new skill, try it for a few paintings and then move forward from that one style and see what happens, what develops. I challenge you to do something similar, keep experimenting, exploring, creating and then, yes, sharing. 

Prompts

• What feels ready to be shared right now — even privately?
• Who is this work actually for?
• Write about what scares you about being seen.
• Finish: “If I shared this, the best outcome would be…”

Activities

Movement:
Walk somewhere public.

Food:
Bring something to share — literal or metaphorical.

Pause:
One breath before sending, posting, or showing your work.

Explore More

Share something small with one person you trust. Notice the response — and your own reaction.

Optional To Do

• Read something aloud.
• Post a fragment, not the whole thing. 
• Post a blurb about your process – it could inspire someone else.
• Leave work somewhere unexpected — a note, a photo, a sketch.

“Heading Home” is a timely one as I write this in 24 degrees Fahrenheit while living in a little 15 foot travel trailer in NM. I’d prefer a cabin like in the picture. It reminds me of winters where the roads were so covered in snow drifts that my dogs and I had to hike home with supplies and a craving for a woodstove and cuppa tea. 

Closing Thought

The American poet and civil rights activist, Maya Angelou, said: “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”

So use your creativity and send it out there. Let me know if you want to brainstorm how and where. 

What happens if you share a line, image, or experience with a stranger you meet at a cafe or bar? Does it connect you both or something else? 

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WEEK 12 — WHAT’S NEXT? 

Focus: Integration, rhythm, and what comes next

This isn’t an ending. It’s a pause. A place to look back and forward at the same time.

Creativity isn’t something done and gone. It’s something you return to — again and again — in different forms. Make it a habit. Make it part of your week or day. A part of how you move through the world. There are numerous ways we can do this and I’ll share a few here. 

Inspiration

Ursula K. Le Guin spoke about work as a lifelong conversation. I’d add, it’s a conversation with yourself. For me, writing is most definitely that. It’s how I make sense of the world. If you know my novels, you’ll see starting points are similar to my own life experiences and yet, then the narrator makes her own decisions and reactions. I think of it as beginning with a situation that confuses me and then plopping down someone else in it and see what they do. I find it fascinating. And like Hayao Miyazaki has said, curiosity is what keeps him working. For me, it’s that curiousity that drives my writing. Not so much for the art, for painting, but this type of creativity comes more from sensing the situation, a more present focused expression, how does that place or environment affect me? What do I want to take from this moment? 

Have a look at the different types of creative projects you are working on and consider these questions. It might help you place your work more solidly in your life once you know why you do what you do…

Prompts

• What have you learned about how you work best?
• What do you want to carry forward?
• What are you willing to leave behind?
• Write a note to yourself six months from now.

Activities

Movement:
Return to your favorite walk from these weeks. Take a notebook or camera and take snapshots of the details that have lingered. Keep them as favourites and see if they spark a new image or story or poem. 

Food:
Make something celebratory, but simple. Take your time. Enjoy the process. And the eating. 

Pause:
Each morning, write out what is good in your life. Remind yourself that Change is Possible. 

Explore More

Review your notes, sketches, photos, writing. Look for patterns. These are clues, not instructions.

Optional To Do

• Create a one-page “creative agreement” with yourself.
• Choose one habit to keep.
• Choose one pressure, one obstacle to let drop to the side.
• Find your sweet spot. Share it with a friend. 

Closing Thought

Mary Oliver asked: What will you do with your one wild and precious life?

LASTLY — I hope that these twelve weeks of prompts and ideas gets you motivated to explore more, whatever that means to you. If you want a bit more help, yes, here’s the pitch (!) I love to help others be more creative and I do that by offering individual coaching, sharing resources and community, or simply staying in touch — framed as conversations. So let me know if you would like a bit more time. 

You can find out more about how I do that and all that good stuff here https://sarahleamy.com/creativity-coaching/

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Thanks for sticking with me, take care. 
Sleam xxx

Photo by Shelly Johnson 2024

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