Are You Frustrated With Your Story?

Well, probably I can't fix that. But I thought you might like to read this, if you haven't already. (As near as I can tell, it's not been posted outside the regional & genre forums, and I would hate for anyone to miss it.)

“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 it's 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


There is a pretty good poster picture of this at http://www.antennariagames.com/support-indie-blog/i-wish-someone-told-me-quote Wish it was for sale; I'd buy me one in a snap.

Anyway, good luck out there, fellow yarn-spinners - and maybe we don't take him too literally on that whole story-a-week thing, eh!

Thank you so much. I'm going to save that.

I'm going to save that too. That's exactly what I'm doing right now, and exactly how I feel. The only thing you can do is push yourself, and keep writing, keep working.