Ira Glass, US radio personality and producer-host of the radio and television show This American Life perfectly sums up why so many new artists and writers give up. It’s not a perseverance problem, but something at the heart of why artists and writers enter the field in the first place:
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.
In this interview with Transom – illustrated with examples of Ira’s work from his own killer-taste-poor-performance days – he tells you in detail how he made it past that phase himself. It’s a compelling story.
Ha! You’re back. Good-oh.