The Experiment
Late one night at home in Coventry, I got an idea. An idea for the content on this blog. I started writing.
The idea? Simple. Write comedic posts that clashed something from cosmology with something from ordinary life. The physics? Real. The comparison? Something funny. And off I went.
I read the latest science news. Thinking about how I could connect quantum mechanics to making a cup of tea. Or black holes to a bad day at the office. The writing itself? Yep, like a bored, eccentric professor.
Developing the voice was a lot of fun, and the new post ideas came thick and fast. I had to keep a notebook to catch all the wacky concepts floating around my head.
Yeah…
But then I reviewed how it was doing. People were reading. But I sensed it might be too “out there”. At first, I ignored it. Keep going, mate. Don’t worry. But the more I looked, the more I got the sinking feeling that the experiment was failing.
There was the moment I called it an "experiment." Because that’s what it was.
So what do you do when a creative experiment feels like it's stalling?
At first, I thought about scrapping the whole thing. But thinking through writing is one of the best ways to work out what’s next.
Instead of throwing my hands up, I decided to take a step back. and look at first principles to figure out what I want from this blog.
I used a 3-step audit framework to sort myself out. Here it is:
1. Re-evaluate the Goal
I have to ask myself: Why did I start this? Was it to entertain myself and play with wacky concepts, or was it to build a specific, engaged audience? Knowing your true baseline goal changes how you measure success.
2. Listen to the Data vs. the Feeling
Am I failing, or scared because it feels weird? It's easy to mistake the vulnerability of doing something unique for "failure". Look at the actual numbers before you let the creative anxiety take the wheel.
3. Adjust the Dial
You don’t need to blow up the entire spaceship. Instead, look at the dials. Do I need to scrap the cosmic comedy? Or do I need to turn down the eccentricity? To make it a bit more accessible to earthlings?
Every creative journey needs a course correction at some point. I don't have all the answers yet, but using these steps to think it through beats giving up.
What about you? Have you ever had to pivot a creative project or an experiment that felt a bit too "out there"?