I don't know if I can express how very true this amazing quote from Ira Glass is.
“Nobody tells people who are beginners, and I really wish
somebody had told this to me, is that if you’re watching this video you’re
somebody who wants to make videos, right? And all of us who do creative work
like, you know, we get into it and we get into it because we have good taste.
Do you know what I mean?
Like you want to make TV because you love TV. You know what
I mean? Because there’s stuff that you just like love, OK? So you’ve got really
good taste and you get into this thing that I don’t even know how to describe
but it’s like there’s a gap. That for the first couple years that you’re making
stuff, what you’re making isn’t so good, OK? It’s not that great. It’s really
not that great. It’s trying to be good, it has ambition to be good, but it’s
not quite that good.
But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, your
taste is still killer and your taste is good enough that you can tell that what
you’re making is kind of a disappointment to you, you know what I mean? Like
you can tell that it’s still sort of crappy. A lot of people never get past
that phase and a lot of people at that point quit.
And the thing I would just like say to you with all my heart
is that most everybody I know who does interesting creative work, they went
through a phase of years where they had really good taste and they could tell
what they were making wasn’t as good as they wanted it to be. They knew it fell
short, you know, and some of us can admit that to ourselves and some of us are
a little less able to admit that to ourselves.
But we knew that it didn’t have the special thing that we
wanted it to have and the thing what to do is… Everybody goes through that. And
for you to go through it, if you’re going through it right now, if you’re just
getting out of that phase or if you’re just starting off and you’re entering
into that phase, you’ve got to know it’s totally normal and the most important
possible thing you can do is do a lot of work.
Do a huge volume of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that
every week or every month you know you’re going to finish one story. You know
what I mean? Whatever it’s going to be. You create the deadline. It’s best if
you have somebody who’s waiting for work from you, somebody who’s expecting
work from you, even if it’s not somebody who pays you but that you’re in a
situation where you have to try not to work. Because it’s only be actually
going through a volume of work that you are actually going to catch up and
close that gap. And the work you’re making will be as good as your ambitions.”