Your job is to make more of it. You don’t have to make more of the same if you don’t feel like it. You don’t have to give the crowd more of what it wants. All you have to do is ship more honest, creative, daring art.
The Lost City is an adventure comedy about a washed-up writer of cheesy adventure romance novels. Finding herself trapped in a real adventure with the not-exactly-bright cover model of her books, Loretta Sage claims her “schlock” writing is meaningless, to which said model, Alan, responds:
“I was so embarrassed that one of my friends might see me in that wig on the cover of your book that I avoided talking to them for months. And then one day, I’m walking home, and I hear this lady yell, ‘Dash!’ She runs up, and she is so happy. Then I thought, ‘How could I be this embarrassed about something that makes people this happy?'”
In an enlightened moment, Alan explains Loretta can do whatever she wants – but she should never diminish her audience based on which parts of her work they like or don’t like.
You are not the critic. You are the creator. Afford your work – and the people engaging with it – the same courtesy with which you hope we will approach your art: Never judge a book by its cover.