Where Is Your Place in the Creative World?

Since childhood, people ask that loaded question: “Where Do I Fit In?” Creatives still ask that question, but with a twist:

“Where Is My Place in the Creative World?”

Authors Joy E. Rancatore and Mea Smith have asked the same question, and they’ve developed a three-tiered approach to help Creatives answer where they belong.

In this episode, Joy and Mea provide Creatives with 11 questions to answer. These prompts cover the first two tiers of finding your place in the creative world. The third tier—connecting with the right creative audience—will be covered more thoroughly in Episode 3 of Season 5.

To answer Where Is Your Place in the Creative World, decide who you are and what you want as a creative by answering these six questions:

#1: What are your fundamental standards? What is your code of conduct or the set of standards that guide what and how you create?

#2: Why do you have to create?

#3: What do you want to create?

#4: What are your goals for what you create?

#5: What do you want to make people feel?

#6: Envision yourself as a successful artist. Who’s around you? Where are you? How are you holding that success—are you headlining conferences as a keynote speaker or touring bookstores and libraries across the country or traveling while you create?

Next, look outside yourself to who you want beside you on your creative journey, by answering these five questions:

Question #1: Who do you want to support?

Question #2: What do you want to promote?

Question #3: What support would you like?

Question #4: How can you help fellow creatives? How are you willing to do this?

Question #5: What safeguards can you put in place to make sure you engage wisely in ways that are best for you and them?

Check out the links referenced in the show:

QWERTY Writing Life Podcast, Season 3, Episode 17, “Fundamental Standards for Creatives”: https://qwertywritinglife.podbean.com/e/fundamental-standards-for-creatives/

QWERTY Writing Life Podcast, Season 5, Episode 1, “Calibrate Your Creative Purpose”: https://qwertywritinglife.podbean.com/e/calibrate-your-creative-purpose/

Dan Blank’s book, Be the Gateway: https://wegrowmedia.com/bethegateway/

“Writing with Maggie Stiefvater” digital writing course: https://www.etsy.com/listing/806360184/writing-with-maggie-stiefvater-8-hour

Learn more about their book on writing critique partners, Finders Keepers: A Practical Approach to Find and Keep Your Writing Critique Partner: https://www.logosandmythospress.com/finders-keepers

Writer Moms Inc. Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Writermomsinc/

Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi): https://allianceindependentauthors.org/?affid=7767

Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA): https://www.ibpa-online.org/

Rom-Com Author Sharon Peterson: https://sharonmpeterson.com/

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Intro music created and performed by Brent Smith.

Continue this week’s chat via email at qwertywritinglife [at] gmail [dot] com. For more information about the QWERTYs, the show and their writing craft book series, head over to https://qwertywritinglife.com. Subscribe in your favorite podcast portal. Or, if you’d rather see their grinning faces, ring the bell on their YouTube channel. Please share our podcast with your friends, too! For more about Mea and her writing, visit storyswell.net. Joy and her details can be found at joyerancatore.com.