The wait to audition can be more strenuous than the audition itself.

In high school, band geeks who all played the same instrument auditioned for something called region band. They performed scales and selections from a few prepared pieces for judges sitting behind a partition as well as their fellow geeks.

When a letter was called, the corresponding geek rose from the mass of their peers and took the lone seat in the center of the room. A moderator announced “Letter J” and the head judge confirmed “Letter J.” Silence commanded the room until Letter J began to play.

A few auditions were sublime. A few were suck incarnate. Most were in-between. One time someone played the wrong scale and the room’s collective cringe was palpable.

The audition itself was never stressful. When your letter was called, one way or another the notes would pour forth. But the waiting was draining. It gave ample time to practice the most difficult fingerings over and over, wonder whether you’d hit the high notes, and doubt your level of preparation.

What is the present digital landscape if not an unending stream of auditions? Every app released, every essay tweeted, every TikTok posted is a performance asking for scores. Scores of scores: likes, ratings, comments.

I feel some jealousy toward those who have found their niche in this environment. I haven’t found mine yet. My approach is to take notice of interests when they arise and nurture them. It’s how I built this website, my first digital project. I wanted a place on the Internet that I could call my own, so I made one, added a few curiosities, and launched it.

I also feel some tension with this digital audition process. I am slow to complete projects, but I see people auditioning all of the time. Working in silence is lonely, so there’s plenty of opportunity to doubt what I’m doing. Is it good? Is it interesting?

A simple tactic to feel better would be to build in public, to share what I’m doing as I do it. I know this would help because I’m happy with all of my tweets and website content, even when there’s no engagement. The act of sharing is enough. But I’m hesitant to share my projects-in-progress because I love surprises. I had plans to take a surprise vacation before the coronavirus obliterated them. My favorite video game continually surprises the player through clever interactions with the environment. My favorite television show similarly delights in surprising the viewer.

Fortunately, I have a solution made of two parts. The first is mindset: because I am me, I of course pay a lot of attention to myself. But no one else does! If I tweet out some snippet of the day’s progress, it’s merely another drip from the content faucet for anyone else, so my eventual audition will still be a surprise for them. The second is control: I choose what to share. I can be as detailed or as vague as I’d like. I imagine I’ll opt for the latter as I dip my toes into the waters of sharing.

Waiting in the room to audition for region band was an unavoidable obstacle. It was part of the process. But there is no process for creating things for the Internet. You set the rules, and if you don’t like the results, you can change the rules and see what happens. That’s what I’m going to do as I continue to work on my projects. Learning, improving, refining.