Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Back to Basics - Why you have to power through

This week in my series of posts about creative blocks and how to get through them I'd like to share a quote with you. There's a fabulous quote by Ira Glass that goes like this:
"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." 
The key phrase in this for those of us who are stuck is "the most important thing you can do is DO A LOT OF WORK".
This means that no matter how uncreative you may feel, or have that block that keeps you from making new work, it's so important to POWER THROUGH this and make more work.  It may not be good.  It may be cool and awesome.  But the most important thing is to KEEP WORKING. 
This is why thinking about working in a series or having a recurring creative reason (like weekly or monthly journal quilts) helps you get through these, as you are almost required to keep working. 
Next week, I'm going to post some thoughts about my Weekly Quilt project and why I do it, etc that may help you think about this process.  

2 comments:

Lynne said...

I really enjoyed reading that - thank you! I'm a beginner so I think I can do almost anything!! LOL (Just some things I prefer not to do!)

Unknown said...

You're so right! Every work we've done gives us a bit of experience. Thanks for inspiring words!