My binder-portfolio with the early stuff I made.

Nobody tells this to you who are beginners. Beginners in any creative craft. I wish someone told me. 

If you do creative work, you get into it because you have good taste built within you. But there’s a gap between starting to create and being good. 

it’s the just not that good but trying hard gap. It’s potential. 

Your taste that got you into creating is still killer. Your taste is also why your efforts disappoint you. 

Some people never get past the gap. They quit. 

As a Laurel doing creative work many go through years knowing our work doesn’t have the special quality we want it to have. We all go through this in some form. I know I did.  

If you are just beginning or are in this gap, please, know its normal. And the most important thing you can do is more creating. Commit yourself to creating something every week. 

It is only by creating a huge body of work that you close and remove the gap. That your work becomes what your dreams imagine. And I took longer to figure this out than most. 

Know it’s gonna take awhile. Know it’s normal. Be aware, keep creating and you’ll fight your way through the gap. 

 Related External Links:
Ira Glass,  Posted on Fresh Air with Terry Gross, April 25, 2011