Why do I Hate What I Create Sometimes?

Ira Glass on the Gap Between Taste and Skill

You started making things because you love pottery or painting or writing so much. When you’re done, you look at what you made and sometimes all you can feel is disappointed.

“Why do my pieces suck so bad?” you say as you look at your painting with your head cocked sideways.

It takes all that is within you not to delete your fledgling manuscript and just give up.

Ira Glass gave some advice about this phenomenon targeted to beginners during an interview. He starts off by describing the feeling of disappointment people starting out feel from time to time.

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. 

He goes on to describe the reason for that disenchantment with your work. It’s just because your taste is impeccable, but your work just isn’t yet.

But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. 

You know what good work looks like, and your work isn’t quite there yet. And that’s why you want to throw your first novel into the circular file and never look back. Ira Glass says this is a normal phase in the process of skills development.

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. 

The key is to keep chugging along with your work. If you keep creating and developing on your skills, you will continue to improve and close that gap between where you are now and where you want to be. Ira Glass says that this is all part of the growth process.

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.

Here’s a video of the quote with the original audio if you want to hear Ira in his own words.

I blog as a way to encourage myself to put writing out in the world on a regular basis. Other people try the 100 day creativity challenge or Inktober to encourage themselves to keep creating regularly. What do you do to make sure you are practicing your creative work regularly?

Do you want to join me for creative collaboration? I’m making a Facebook group for peer accountability and encouragement for regular folks with creative goals. Join me here.