New Year, New Inspiration

I haven't been making a lot of art lately - not just because of my hectic life, but because I've been experiencing kind of a creative lull. I feel like everything I produce is inadequate. I might feel good about it at first, but then I'll see something someone else did and feel like shoving all my art supplies in the garbage can.

I had myself convinced that this was because I'm just not as talented as I thought I was, but then I saw this quote and (as cliched as this might seem) it really, REALLY kicked me in the butt to muscle through.

If you haven't already applied the "too long; didn't read" principle to this post, I challenge you to kick aside whatever it is in your head that's stopping you from being creative right now.

Cheers!

p.s. I'M BACK! Prepare yourselves for copious amounts of blogging.

“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