Your ideas can't change the world if you keep them in your drafts.

This essay is a permission slip to share your fucking art.

There are BIG and beautiful ideas inside your head that are WITHERING away, because you’re waiting for permission to execute them.

Do you want to know why sharing your art can feel so “cringey” and embarrassing for the first time?

It’s because no one fucking asked for it.

No one’s asking you to write that post! No one’s asking you to start that blog, record that song, share that piece of content, start that business or that podcast.

Creating something and sharing it can feel so “cringey” because it’s your way of taking up space in the world. With each creation, article or post, you’re earnestly saying: no one asked for this but I have a feeling the world NEEDS this, so I have spent time creating it and am putting it out there anyway.

It is so fucking sincere! Sharing your work online is the digital equivalent of a street performer setting themselves up with a microphone, in a busy space where no one asked them to perform, and giving it a good old fucking GO! Some might applaud, others might throw you some change and some might laugh or humiliate you.

No one asked for your fucking art! But guess what. No one will EVER ask for your art, until you create the art that no one asked for.

Create first and the permission will follow.

Refuse to let your ideas collect any more dust in your drafts. If you’re waiting for permission to share your art, it’s never coming. I mean it. You have to give it to yourself. Right now. You must decide today that your ideas are simply too brilliant to hoard from the world.

You have to create like the permission is never coming. Because no one is ever going to ask for your art. Why would they? They don’t even know they need it yet! People don’t know what they need until they see it. You have to make the art that no one asked for first and that’s how you give people something to buy into. You must take your ideas, execute them and SHOW people why they need it.

Create first and the permission will follow.

The best artists, the ones you know, the ones whose names get floated around in conversations, none of them were asked to begin creating the work that they do. They audaciously created something that no one asked for and once people had seen what they’re capable of, the permission followed. You have to view permission as something to be earned through tangible proof. You must give people a taste of your fruit to make them want it!

In the words of Julia Cameron “All too often, it is audacity and not talent that moves an artist to centre stage”.

Audacious artists create art like that permission slip is never coming. They know that success doesn’t come from waiting. Great artists know that to generate opportunities, you must create the things that no one fucking asked for. You must give that permission slip to yourself.

My audacious story

I have hundreds of thousand of followers today, but there was a day almost ten years ago that I had an audience of zero. My platform wasn’t handed to me, I had to do that cringey, embarrassing and audacious work of creating for an audience of none.

I was just a teenager in her bedroom that created the log-in details for her creative Instagram account, blocked her friends and family and decided to start sharing her ideas in short captions after school. I loved it. It didn’t even feel brave to begin with because no one was watching. This building phase was one of the most exciting stages of gaining momentum in my career. I had nothing to lose, no reputation, no expectations to meet! It was thrilling.

I loaded hashtags on the bottom of every post. I followed the accounts I loved. I even emailed magazines attaching files of my illustrations audaciously telling them (not asking them) that they needed to feature my work. Most of them ignored me but a few accepted and the exposure landed me bigger opportunities.

creating the illustrations for my third book in my bedroom

At 18 years old I was rejected from showing my artwork at an exhibition because they didn’t have enough space, so I suggested that they make room for me by stringing my illustrations up between two of the walls. They agreed, I hopped on the coach from Plymouth to London and attended my first-ever group exhibition showcasing my artwork.

I emailed my work to publications every week. I voiced my opinions and created artwork with slogans based on my feelings about life at the time, trusting that if I was feeling them someone else would be too. I was just a girl in her room that trusted she had something important to say, without asking anyone if they even wanted to hear it. I never once asked for permission. I created opportunities for myself that didn’t exist by having the audacity to ask.

I LOVED what I was creating so much and I trusted that it would resonate with others because it resonated with me. I loved the thrill of generating my own momentum. I didn’t wait for someone to tell me what to create, I did it all without permission. I created the art that no one fucking asked for, until they started asking for it.

“Build it and the people will come”

Not a single artist or writer that you admire started out with audiences drooling over their latest piece of work, or begging them to release new projects! How do you think an audience gets built?! The artists you love created and published their work, WHEN NO ONE WAS ASKING FOR IT, until the people eventually came. It’s only when you make yourself seen that a crowd of people can gather around you. We can’t just expect people to start applauding or paying us for our inner hidden artistic genius. There has to be something there for people to look at, to begin applauding in the first place.

Visibility and vulnerability is an unavoidable part of being an artist. While it might feel ‘cringey’ at first to put your ideas out there, never forget that having a fierce commitment to your work, actually makes you ridiculously cool. You may be laughed at by some people - or by the cruel council of voices in your head - but the second you dare to share your art, you stop rubbing shoulders with those cynical critics and you become part of a new community, full of other people that have the courage to express themselves - those audacious artists!

As much as people may mock those of us who courageously share our work, their reactions tend to come from a deep frustration they feel with themselves. When they look at you, they see every dream they gave up on because they themselves had their enthusiasm shamed out of them by miserable bullies, were too embarrassed to try or waited for permission to pursue their dreams. When they look at you giving it a go, they see every idea they ever gave up on.

Use the misery and hatred of those voices to remind you of what happens when you don’t act on your ideas. Refuse to become like them. Refuse to live in resentment of other people’s success and enthusiasm, and have the courage to act on your fucking dreams!

Refuse to be someone that feels entitled to opportunities just because you have great ideas. Instead focus on what you can control - creating as much tangible proof as possible that you deserve them. YOU know that you have great ideas, so give your vibrant inner world some physicality and make your brilliance undeniable! Show us! Let us see it! The sooner you realise that the world owes you and your art nothing - no opportunities, no work, no recognition - you start to get the fuck out of your own way and you go about creating the life of your dreams through sheer, brazen AUDACITY.

On the note of things the world does’t owe you…

You are not entitled to an audience.

Every day, I remind myself that no matter how big of an audience I have created, no matter how many books published, or messages that I receive from people telling me that my work has changed their life, I am not entitled to an audience and I am also not entitled to a certain response to my work. I am only entitled to create the things that I want to exist in the world. Ironically, this is the way to create the best fucking work for others.

After all of those years I spent creating things no one asked for, people do ask for my art now. To the point where I don’t have enough hours in the day to do even a tenth of the things I wish I could give to my audience. Whether I’m asked to publish a certain type of book or create all sorts of things from clothing lines, to colouring books, to writing a queer screenplay. Most of them are fantastic ideas. But even if I could do everything my audience asked of me (which I can’t, you can read my last essay on this!) I’m not sure that creating the things I am ‘requested’ to create would be in service to either myself, my art, or even the audience that it can often be tempting to please.

In the words of Rick Rubin "The audience comes last. I'm not making it for them, I'm making it for me. It turns out that when you truly make something for yourself, you're doing the best thing you possibly can for the audience."

The best art that I have ever created was the shit that no one asked for. The art that I was obsessed with, the art I created in the quiet, the art that lit my fucking soul on fire and that I couldn’t wait to share with the world. The art that I had a ‘hunch’ to create. As though I was picking up on a universal nudge, a shift in culture that I felt called to act on, despite the fact that there was no tangible evidence around me to support this feeling.

The job of the artist is to create that tangible evidence. To make the feeling a real, physical thing, to work on it and hold it up to the world and say “I’m feeling this, is anyone else feeling this too?”. In the process of creation not only do you stop waiting for permission, your art becomes the permission slip for other people.

Great artists have the audacity to execute something before the world asks for it. They trust that if they want to see something exist, that other people will want to see the thing exist. They don’t WAIT for permission. They BECOME the permission.

Every single project that I have ever launched was something that NO ONE asked for. Every Instagram post. Every book I’ve written. Even this essay. No one asked for this and I’m doing it anyway, because it’s something I needed to hear, even a few months ago when I was waiting for the courage to start my Substack.

Audacious faith in your taste will take you far. Trust that if you’re obsessed with it, someone else will be too. Your ideas should be taken seriously, but the curse of taking them too seriously is that you begin to hoard them. Keeping them selfishly close to your chest. But those big and beautiful ideas inside you are too brilliant to hoard, and if you ever need to humble yourself when you start to take your ideas too seriously, remember that you’re hoarding art the world didn’t even fucking ask for.

So just start making it.

Have the audacity to bring to life those visions that no one asked for, and who knows, the world might even start asking you for them.

Create first, the permission will follow.

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Thank you so much for reading, I would love to hear from you in the comments!

What audacious risks have you taken that have paid off before? Are you ready to dust off those drafts, hit publish and contribute your ideas to the world?!