Explaining your beliefs to other people… may my students be as rapt as these!

There’s nothing that makes you analyse your beliefs more than having to explain them to other people.

I’m coming up against this hard fact a lot at the moment, as I’m preparing to co-facilitate a half-day workshop. It’s called “Selling yourself without selling out”. (It’s for artists of all kinds, and aims to take the cringe factor out of self-promotion.) My co-facilitator is novelist, writer and creative writing tutor Derbhile Dromey.

For one thing, just because it’s obvious to me why using social media for self-promotion is a good idea for artists, workshop attendees may not necessarily agree whole-heartedly. So I am having to peel back the layers of my assumptions on that score, and come up with a way to elucidate my reasoning.

For another, like any skill as you practise it more, using social media for self-promotion as an artist becomes second nature. Consequently, if I am asked “Should I create a separate Facebook page for my artistic work, or can I just use my personal account?”, I really have to scratch my head to ensure that I give a clear answer. I know what I would do, but telling someone else what they should do, and why, is a different matter.

It’s all part of the preparation work, which, like anything worthwhile, is a time-consuming task.

On the plus side, I’m hugely excited about working with Derbhile and having the opportunity to support some fellow artists with their self-promotion work in the world of social media.