2011

Malcolm Gladwell observed that people who become skilled must put in their time honing their skills. The 10,000 hours.

And Ira Glass just left this wonderful quote toward belief in getting better:

“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.”

Here's one more from Ira that gives me something to strive towards:

It's hard to make something that's interesting. It's really, really hard. It's like a law of nature, a law of aerodynamics, that anything that's written or anything that's created wants to be mediocre. The natural state of all writing is mediocrity... So what it takes to make anything more than mediocre is such an act of will...”

― Ira Glass

2006

I read a good essay about creativity and honing one's craft:

First day of class, the pottery professor divided his students into two groups. One group was to make just one object during the term. But, it was to be perfect in every way. The other group was to throw, coil or shape as many objects as they could. They were not to worry about mistakes but to just make an object and go onto the next one.

At the end of the term, those in the second group who didn't worry about perfection and concentrated on the working with the clay had achieved the most beautiful objects of the two groups.

I'm standing with the second group. I hang out with photography every day. I shoot, I read, I process. I look at other people's work, I read comments, I make comments.

Other than reading, it is my favorite personal endeavor.

Here's a link to my website: sharonstyer.com/

I can be reached at Sharon@sharonstyer.com