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Reminds me of Ira Glass on taste and work: "Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into
by bcjordan 15y ago
Reminds me of Ira Glass on taste and work:
"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."
- klaut 15y agoI love this quote. Everytime i read it, it reminds me that it is fine if i feel that i am producing crap. I just need to keep on working at it and eventually i'll do fine
- xsmasher 15y agoI like the quote, but am always turned off by the use "good taste" there, where it seems more appropriate to say "a particular taste." You create because you have a particular taste, you are successful if you have "good" taste as measured by the market. Also because you are self-critical and self-aware; you can't improve until you realize that your current output is crap.