Ira Glass on the Creative Gap
If you don’t know Ira Glass, you should. If you don’t know Ira’s show, This American Life, you should.
This message is about how creative people need to really stick with what they are doing. He’s talking to people who work in TV, but it applies to everyone who produces.
A few excerpts:
Most everyone I know who does interesting, creative work went through a phase of years where they had really good taste and they knew what they were making wasn’t as good as they wanted it to be. They knew it fell short.
Everybody goes through that. 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 that’s totally normal. The most important possible thing you could 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. Whatever it’s going to be…
It takes a while. It’s going to take you a while. It’s normal to take a while. You just have to fight your way through that. You will be fierce. You will be a warrior. And you will make things that aren’t as good as you know in your heart you want them to be. And you’ll just make one after another.
On a personal note, I have been writing for years. We don’t even have to count daily writing in online forums since I was 12. This is my third serious blog. I’ve worked on three novels and over a dozen nonfiction titles for general audiences. Years. If you go back to something like my Ken Sharpe writing, you can tell it’s my writing, but it’s terrible.
Just now I feel like I’m getting to the point where I can write something passable. Just now I feel like I am at a level where I can begin to understand how other really strong writers can suck people in with words. In a few years maybe I’ll be as good as they are.
If you’re not happy with your current work—your writing, your art, your business, whatever creative field you’re in—then the best thing you can do is keep doing it, a lot.
7 Responses to “Ira Glass on the Creative Gap”
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My mission is to inspire people to think clearly, to live deliberately, to conquer fear and embrace possibility, to express beauty, and to love completely. Prepare to be scorched then reborn, authentic and complete.
Hey Pete,
My favorite line was this – “It takes a while. It’s going to take you a while. It’s normal to take a while.”
I like how it’s emphasized 3 times – yes, doing great things can happen. Yes, at first you will understand your results are not up to the standard you’ve set.
And yes, it will take a while. I always try to find shortcuts, but I’ve found over and over again – for the things I really want, it’s going to take a while to get to the level I need – and the standards that I know I am falling short of ;).
Sid Savara´s last blog ..Conversation Hacking – How To Make Small Talk Work For You
Yeah, it’s an important message. I think most people who only think about making it big, instead of working on daily, would be shocked at how long an “overnight” success takes. I think Twitter was 3 years old before anyone had actually heard of them. You’d be hard pressed to find a famous novelist who hadn’t written at least 2 or 3 books before they got their first tiny publishing contract.
In a way that sort of dashes the naive hope that optimism and luck are all you need. But in another way, it gives hope: the superstars are just the ones who worked for years. If you want to be one, you now what you need to do.
Well. The first time I read your writing it immediately occurred to me how well it flowed and how natural it sounded, yet it also seemed fitting for professional publication. I thought you were just naturally very well spoken.
Brad´s last blog ..Exodus to Virtual Worlds
That’s the trick isn’t it? Making it look easy.
Another thought. I just watched a TED talk (Gaming can make the world a better place) where the speaker referred to Malcolm Gladwell’s thesis that you need about 10,000 hours of immersion in an endeavor to reach the highest level of skill. So for any kind of producer–writer, artist, movie producer–your work is almost guaranteed to be subpar for quite some time. Makes me feel better.
Brad´s last blog ..Exodus to Virtual Worlds
Yes, absolutely. When I wrote the Achievement Porn essay I was kind of riffing off of Jesse’s talk at TED.
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