What you need to do to make brilliant work

If you suck at something you care about, you're already on the way

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Yesterday, I rediscovered this piece of wisdom from Ira Glass, journalist and host of This American Life:

“Everybody I know who does interesting, creative work… went through years where they had really good taste and they could tell that what they were making wasn’t as good as they wanted it to be.

They knew it fell short. Everybody goes through that.

And if you are just starting out or if 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.

Do a huge volume of work…

It is only by going through a volume of work that you’re going to catch up and close that gap. And the work you’re making will be as good as your ambitions.”

-IRA GLASS

First, you get great taste

I’ve started writing fiction this year, and I’m painfully aware of how ham-fisted it is. I’m aware of that because of how much I read. I read over 100 books a year, and spend a lot of time and energy thinking about great stories and great writing.

I listen to interviews with my favourite authors. I go to writing workshops and retreats. I delight at a clever plot, a lovely turn of phrase, and I’ve developed a great ‘eye’. Books I once enjoyed at face value have transformed into masterpieces I’m in awe of, now I understand what makes a great story.

I can also spot not good very quickly. In the first few pages of a book, I'll wince at cliche, confusion and clumsiness, and put it back down. You know what it reminds me of? MY OWN WORK. My writing is still very amateur, and I’ve never been more aware of it than I am now I actually know stuff about writing fiction. Ugh.

Have you ever experienced this?

You get into something, and if you spend enough time working with it and thinking about it, you develop great taste.

• If you’re a photographer, you start noticing great composition.

• If you’re a runner, you become impressed by people’s marathon times.

• If you’re learning guitar, a certain riff suddenly stands out on the radio

• If you’re a graphic designer, you wince at ugly posters and find great white balance very satisfying.

Then, you realise you suck

… but that doesn’t mean you can do it yourself, not yet.

Surely, having the knowledge, the language, and the frameworks should be enough? You know what good looks like, sounds like, feels like… WHY CAN’T YOU DO IT?!

It’s not you sucking that hurts. It’s your awareness of the gap between your efforts and your taste.

Find quality through quantity

Glass is right on this one: the thing standing between your skills and your taste is a large body of work. The only way to close the gap between your skills and your taste is quantity. With quantity, you’ll get to quality.

But most people give up too early. They find the discomfort too much. They’re embarrassed and disappointed. They feel like they should be making faster progress. So they stop, just before they were about to turn the corner.

(Maybe. There’s literally no way of knowing, is there? Because they stopped. But I like to think it, because it makes a better story.)

You’ll top out somewhere, but you don’t know where yet

Everyone has a ceiling on their ability and capacity. Most runners will never run a 3.5 hour marathon, and most musicians won’t write Bohemian Rhapsody, no matter how long they train and practice. But how can you possibly know what your ceiling is, unless you do the work?

Your eye, your style, your voice, your signature… it’s waiting for you. The outcome that’s totally, distinctively, you, so you people will spot your work and say “ah, that looks like a Sarah Baker.” (If your name is Sarah Baker, I apologise, I’m not targeting you directly.)

There’s just a big old sack of consistent, repetitive work in the way. Plodding, constant progress, which is sometimes indistinguishable from one day to the next, but all adds up to something new and better.

Your squirming is a good sign

But here’s the last thing worth knowing: You wouldn’t have the eye, unless you were capable of closing the gap.

Your awareness of your own suckiness, alongside your eye for quality, is proof you have it in you. Most people don’t even get the eye for good. You know they don’t. People don’t even notice bad kerning, simple chord progressions, James Patterson novels, blurry selfies or poorly lit movies. Hell, they even like them!

Not you. You know enough to be annoyed, and to care about doing great work. That’s the first step.

Now, you only need to slog away at something you love and care about for a long time until you finally get good. Inspirational stuff.

Til next week,

A

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