One of the things about being a professional creative is that you don't get feedback telling you that you didn't take enough risks on a creation. The time you spend professionally discussing your work is largely gonna be spent defending every risk you've taken with it.

This is because publishers of various types tend to be inherently conservative. They are gatekeepers, they benefit from the status quo, and generally they're gambling their money on your creation. It's not really surprising that they push back against all risks.

As a creative, you have to understand though, that art that takes no risks isn't very good art. It's bland and insipid, and it exists only to support the status quo and to be 'consumed'. And honestly, much of the art you professionally create will probably be of this sort.

This is because you're going to lose most of the arguments you have about risks in creation. Publishers can always take their ball and go home. You still need to pay rent. Effectively, you really only win the arguments that the publisher allows you to win.

You'll often hear the phrase "Choose your battles." You have a limited amount of pushback that you can do before being labelled "hard to work with", which is normally the end of that professional relationship. Poison too many wells, and you're done.

So a critical skill to develop is analyzing whether a battle can be won or not. Sometimes publishers have deeply held personal beliefs that you will never sway with your arguments. Other times, a position is less firmly held, and you can get your way with a bit of persistence.

It's often worth some self-reflection on exactly what battles you want to fight for on a given creation. What matters to you the most, and how much economic freedom do you have to push back with? Money is the power to say "no", to walk away from a project you no longer like.

This process of defending the risks you've taken is always emotionally exhausting, and it's one of the main sources of burnout in creative industries, along with unpaid overtime. I've seen a lot of folks ambushed by it when they entered a creative field.

It's one thing to punch a clock and do a job you don't really care about. It sucks, but it's a very different thing from doing a job that you care very much about, but being asked to do it in a way that you feel is incorrect. That requires a different type of mental fortitude.