Saw this over at Skinny LaMinx this week, and it keeps coming to mind. The bit that stands out is, "the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work."
Looking back on my artwork after a year of creating in a very different way, I just keep trying to sit down and learn again. It's fun, invigorating, and also rough going at times, and my mind does flip flops at night about the body of work I'm creating now. Is it clean enough? Am I allowing it to speak for itself or am I interrupting? Coaching it to be more pleasing?
Working hard gets missed sometimes in our super-paced lifestyle of often oddly rapid rewards (or face-plants). I enjoy working, and so I just keep doing it. I like the pace that I'm growing at as an artist and gatherer of women, and I'm happy with most of what I've created. I'm with Ira, although, I think I'm going to try surrendering my way through. I think I've spent quite enough time fighting with myself in one lifetime.
Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.
― Ira Glass
