What separates success from disappointment (not failure, which is not as bad as being disappointed in yourself) is the ability to be OK with “not yet.” The sense of being an experimenter comes out as the strength to be satisfied with your creative output while knowing, at the same time, that you will do another round, and it will be different, and maybe even better.
Caption at the metro station in Victoria Station, London.
I’ve covered creality several times, but this is the step after creality hits. (Creality is the term that T.J. Goerlitz introduced me to. It’s the gap between what is in your head and what you produce. )
This quote by Ira Glass (host of This American Life) jumped out at me today, and it was perfect for my state of mind. Maybe yours, too.
“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
—-Quinn McDonald is a writer and art journaler. She’s still fighting.
QuinnCreative 