3 ms·

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 t

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

stackghost 5mo ago
>And your taste is why your work disappoints you. [...] We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. I think most of us have experienced this. I consider myself an above-average writer and I absolutely hate everything I write. But the problem, for me anyway, is that it's exceedingly difficult to know what to work on next in order to improve. In that regard writing is entirely unlike a lot of sports. My throws are bad? Better throw 100 passes a day, every day, until my muscle memory is there. I'm getting beat deep? Better work on my fitness. Maybe I'll never get to where I want to be, but at least I know why. But improving one's writing is seemingly impenetrable, to me. I read what I write and it sucks but I have zero intuition about how to un-suck it. I fucking wish I could write like Heller, or Didion, or Tolkien. Not even in terms of writing novels but just the quality of their prose.
- bpavuk 5mo ago
  one concrete thing I can name is "widening" your view on writing. force different styles upon yourself, different constraints. the results will keep being shit for a while, but at least it will be very fun to tonally cosplay Shakespear before the mirror! you won't notice how time will pass :) listening to narrations of vast variety of poetry and narrating something yourself will help you develop your specific voice and read with more intent. you may not even need the "science of writing" this article describes. let yourself just... be with text.
- embedding-shape 5mo ago
  > But improving one's writing is seemingly impenetrable, to me. I read what I write and it sucks but I have zero intuition about how to un-suck it. I fucking wish I could write like Heller, or Didion, or Tolkien. Not even in terms of writing novels but just the quality of their prose. In the beginning it's great to practice your art by yourself with lots of safety, but sooner or later you're gonna want to to ask the public/community at large what they think of what you do, so you can get external feedback from people other's who love the same thing. I think this is probably the only way to actually get better, you need to connect with other people around it, and get their point of view. I've found this true for any creative endeavor I've tried to get better at. Receiving criticism is probably as hard to get good at as giving criticism, so don't let the harsher stuff get into your skin as some people aren't so good at giving criticism, but you'll find lots of other useful advice that you'll agree with, and find directly actionable :)
- billypilgrim 5mo ago
  The thoughts you are having about this show me that you are at a local maximum, but you will find your way out if you keep trying everything. There is no single thing that will help. Read novels, copy them word by word, translate them, write short stories, dissect stories, stop movies halfway and ask yourself how you would continue them. Read a ton of writing advice, try them out but don’t take it as gospel. Even if you don’t improve for 100 days straight, small successes accumulate. In a decade you will have transformed yourself. There is just no way you won’t improve significantly if you keep trying new things and bring yourself to fail ever day. What helped me was the saying “your first million words are gonna be shit”. I still distinctly remember, four or five years into writing every day, when things finally clicked, my voice came through, and my sentences became fun. It is delayed gratification to the max.
  - PotatoNinja 5mo ago
    > There is just no way you won’t improve significantly if you keep trying new things and bring yourself to fail ever day Thank you for this.
- galaxyLogic 5mo ago
  People here are saying you must write a lot to get good. Makes sense. But what about also reading a lot to learn from masters? How do LLMs do it? They don't learn by writing a lot they learn by reading a lot.
  - embedding-shape 5mo ago
    > How do LLMs do it? They don't learn by writing a lot they learn by reading a lot. Literally they learn by both, training process is filled with "exercises" for the weights to be shaped by, not just "seeing" tokens :) At least the typical LLM that outputs tokens have to actually "practice" doing so.
    - galaxyLogic 5mo ago
      True. Just saying we learn not only by lots of trial and error, but also by trying to imitate others.
justonceokay 5mo ago
I am a handyman and have a lot of weird, specific physical skills. Like being able to paint around an electrical outlet, caulking, leveling concrete, juggling, cartwheels, tying cherry stems in my mouth, etc. The life of an embodied worker. When I am teaching anyone any of these skills, the first thing I say is “are you ready to be bad at this for a long time?” Sometimes it catches people off guard. On the other hand, if someone says “yes” then I know that they are going to be a good learner.
- drtz 5mo ago
  I'm not a handyman, but I am a man who happens to be handy. I have done quite a bit of painting and caulking for a guy who's not in the profession. I despise both with a passion, though, especially caulking, and I have never once been satisfied with a single paint or caulk job I've done. I feel like I'm the embodiment of "be bad at this for a long time," although I'm objectively probably halfway decent at it. That is to say I think Ira Glass' quote of "You've just gotta fight your way through" to get where you want to be seems especially meaningful in the context of something like painting, where most everyone _can_ do it (or writing / storytelling in Ira's case), but very few are actually good at it.
  - sokka_h2otribe 5mo ago
    You need a silicone caulking tool, and a video. I have spent many years caulking like a fool listening to other fools who spray water and use their thumbs. Don't. Use the tool. Use the kind with a little oval tip usually (I mean, there are exceptions with harder caulks but for softer e.g bathroom caulks this is more superior.) There's one UK guy on YouTube that convinced me of the evils of water/iso sprays and the beauty of the proper silicone caulking tool. The little wedge shaped caulking tools btw are not enough, as you need some stick to it so you can get around certain angles/items.
    - ajb 5mo ago
      I don't know if it's specifically UK terminology, but here we don't call bathroom silicone "caulk" - we use that term for decorators caulk, which is much more sticky; so needs to be treated differently to silicone. Definitely true that the little tools are amazing for bathroom silicone, not sure what you do with the other stuff
jonahx 5mo ago
> But there is this gap... it’s just not that good.... But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. That is, verifying a solution is much easier than finding it! P != NP
koolba 5mo ago
The software version of this (pre-LLM!) was to write tons of software till the patterns just click. I don’t see that continuing though. Does anyone truly think we’ll have another generation of nerds hacking away for hours by hand to hone their trade? Or will it turn into a craft like woodworking?
- MobiusHorizons 5mo ago
  Why not? People have lots of hobbies.
  - knuckle 5mo ago
    If I'm being honest, software was a hobby before it was a profession. I just thought computers were fun from about age 10 or so. In college I wanted to study Civil engineering, but shifted to Computer engineering and then it turned out the world wanted software so bad they'd let me do whatever I wanted as long as I gave them a little software along the way. I see my sons tinkering with software now in the same way I did. They want to play games and make games and build their own tools. I don't know whether they'll wind up building software as a profession, but I'm sure they'll have the base skills needed to.
- hombre_fatal 5mo ago
  I don’t see how “artisanal” software would make sense since what matters is the end result. One of the worst parts of software is that you develop this deep expertise in something that has less to show for it to people than a guy dicking around on a guitar or someone who made a stool after 40 hours of experience. People aren’t decompiling their iPhone apps to admire your handiwork and evaluate how thoughtfully you modeled the domain. Will artisanal human-driven taxi drivers exist in the future? No, Waymo is even more expensive yet people prefer it. The human aspect turns out to be a liability and less of a human expression people would go out of their way to experience.
utopiah 5mo ago
> your taste is why your work disappoints you. Damn, on point. So hard to go over that hump but so worth it, every time, in retrospect.

stackghost 5mo ago

>And your taste is why your work disappoints you. [...] We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. I think most of us have experienced this. I consider myself an above-average writer and I absolutely hate everything I write. But the problem, for me anyway, is that it's exceedingly difficult to know what to work on next in order to improve. In that regard writing is entirely unlike a lot of sports. My throws are bad? Better throw 100 passes a day, every day, until my muscle memory is there. I'm getting beat deep? Better work on my fitness. Maybe I'll never get to where I want to be, but at least I know why. But improving one's writing is seemingly impenetrable, to me. I read what I write and it sucks but I have zero intuition about how to un-suck it. I fucking wish I could write like Heller, or Didion, or Tolkien. Not even in terms of writing novels but just the quality of their prose.

bpavuk 5mo ago
one concrete thing I can name is "widening" your view on writing. force different styles upon yourself, different constraints. the results will keep being shit for a while, but at least it will be very fun to tonally cosplay Shakespear before the mirror! you won't notice how time will pass :) listening to narrations of vast variety of poetry and narrating something yourself will help you develop your specific voice and read with more intent. you may not even need the "science of writing" this article describes. let yourself just... be with text.
embedding-shape 5mo ago
> But improving one's writing is seemingly impenetrable, to me. I read what I write and it sucks but I have zero intuition about how to un-suck it. I fucking wish I could write like Heller, or Didion, or Tolkien. Not even in terms of writing novels but just the quality of their prose. In the beginning it's great to practice your art by yourself with lots of safety, but sooner or later you're gonna want to to ask the public/community at large what they think of what you do, so you can get external feedback from people other's who love the same thing. I think this is probably the only way to actually get better, you need to connect with other people around it, and get their point of view. I've found this true for any creative endeavor I've tried to get better at. Receiving criticism is probably as hard to get good at as giving criticism, so don't let the harsher stuff get into your skin as some people aren't so good at giving criticism, but you'll find lots of other useful advice that you'll agree with, and find directly actionable :)
billypilgrim 5mo ago
The thoughts you are having about this show me that you are at a local maximum, but you will find your way out if you keep trying everything. There is no single thing that will help. Read novels, copy them word by word, translate them, write short stories, dissect stories, stop movies halfway and ask yourself how you would continue them. Read a ton of writing advice, try them out but don’t take it as gospel. Even if you don’t improve for 100 days straight, small successes accumulate. In a decade you will have transformed yourself. There is just no way you won’t improve significantly if you keep trying new things and bring yourself to fail ever day. What helped me was the saying “your first million words are gonna be shit”. I still distinctly remember, four or five years into writing every day, when things finally clicked, my voice came through, and my sentences became fun. It is delayed gratification to the max.
- PotatoNinja 5mo ago
  > There is just no way you won’t improve significantly if you keep trying new things and bring yourself to fail ever day Thank you for this.
galaxyLogic 5mo ago
People here are saying you must write a lot to get good. Makes sense. But what about also reading a lot to learn from masters? How do LLMs do it? They don't learn by writing a lot they learn by reading a lot.
- embedding-shape 5mo ago
  > How do LLMs do it? They don't learn by writing a lot they learn by reading a lot. Literally they learn by both, training process is filled with "exercises" for the weights to be shaped by, not just "seeing" tokens :) At least the typical LLM that outputs tokens have to actually "practice" doing so.
  - galaxyLogic 5mo ago
    True. Just saying we learn not only by lots of trial and error, but also by trying to imitate others.

justonceokay 5mo ago

I am a handyman and have a lot of weird, specific physical skills. Like being able to paint around an electrical outlet, caulking, leveling concrete, juggling, cartwheels, tying cherry stems in my mouth, etc. The life of an embodied worker. When I am teaching anyone any of these skills, the first thing I say is “are you ready to be bad at this for a long time?” Sometimes it catches people off guard. On the other hand, if someone says “yes” then I know that they are going to be a good learner.

drtz 5mo ago
I'm not a handyman, but I am a man who happens to be handy. I have done quite a bit of painting and caulking for a guy who's not in the profession. I despise both with a passion, though, especially caulking, and I have never once been satisfied with a single paint or caulk job I've done. I feel like I'm the embodiment of "be bad at this for a long time," although I'm objectively probably halfway decent at it. That is to say I think Ira Glass' quote of "You've just gotta fight your way through" to get where you want to be seems especially meaningful in the context of something like painting, where most everyone _can_ do it (or writing / storytelling in Ira's case), but very few are actually good at it.
- sokka_h2otribe 5mo ago
  You need a silicone caulking tool, and a video. I have spent many years caulking like a fool listening to other fools who spray water and use their thumbs. Don't. Use the tool. Use the kind with a little oval tip usually (I mean, there are exceptions with harder caulks but for softer e.g bathroom caulks this is more superior.) There's one UK guy on YouTube that convinced me of the evils of water/iso sprays and the beauty of the proper silicone caulking tool. The little wedge shaped caulking tools btw are not enough, as you need some stick to it so you can get around certain angles/items.
  - ajb 5mo ago
    I don't know if it's specifically UK terminology, but here we don't call bathroom silicone "caulk" - we use that term for decorators caulk, which is much more sticky; so needs to be treated differently to silicone. Definitely true that the little tools are amazing for bathroom silicone, not sure what you do with the other stuff

jonahx 5mo ago

> But there is this gap... it’s just not that good.... But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. That is, verifying a solution is much easier than finding it! P != NP

koolba 5mo ago

The software version of this (pre-LLM!) was to write tons of software till the patterns just click. I don’t see that continuing though. Does anyone truly think we’ll have another generation of nerds hacking away for hours by hand to hone their trade? Or will it turn into a craft like woodworking?

MobiusHorizons 5mo ago
Why not? People have lots of hobbies.
- knuckle 5mo ago
  If I'm being honest, software was a hobby before it was a profession. I just thought computers were fun from about age 10 or so. In college I wanted to study Civil engineering, but shifted to Computer engineering and then it turned out the world wanted software so bad they'd let me do whatever I wanted as long as I gave them a little software along the way. I see my sons tinkering with software now in the same way I did. They want to play games and make games and build their own tools. I don't know whether they'll wind up building software as a profession, but I'm sure they'll have the base skills needed to.
hombre_fatal 5mo ago
I don’t see how “artisanal” software would make sense since what matters is the end result. One of the worst parts of software is that you develop this deep expertise in something that has less to show for it to people than a guy dicking around on a guitar or someone who made a stool after 40 hours of experience. People aren’t decompiling their iPhone apps to admire your handiwork and evaluate how thoughtfully you modeled the domain. Will artisanal human-driven taxi drivers exist in the future? No, Waymo is even more expensive yet people prefer it. The human aspect turns out to be a liability and less of a human expression people would go out of their way to experience.

utopiah 5mo ago

> your taste is why your work disappoints you. Damn, on point. So hard to go over that hump but so worth it, every time, in retrospect.