“I knew I was getting somewhere when I began losing interest...

“I knew I was getting somewhere when I began losing interest in the beginnings and the ends of things.” -Sarah Manguso

“I knew I was getting somewhere when I began losing interest in the beginnings and the ends of things.”

-Sarah Manguso

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Making things is hard and I feel like that’s the most useful thing to say about it. You have to try to be consistent, you have to practice constantly, you have to read, and you can’t make yourself be interested in topics you aren’t interested in. And you have to accept that it’s always going to be challenging. My friend said this about her work, wh... See more

Ava • Making Things Is Hard

When there's a deadline, there's also a destination, a context, a reason for something. And that's what makes me finish it. Up until that point, it's an experiment. It's sitting on my shelf and I can take it down again as I often do, work on it again, put it back on. [Then I can take it] out two years later and work on it some more.

So everything's ... See more

“I always say ‘beginnings are easy, endings are hard’. Beginnings get easier and easier [because] there's so much technological assistance [and] so many ways of getting something started like rhythm machines and chord pattern makers.

There are a lot of ways of getting something pretty respectable going quite early on. To quote Picasso, ‘there's noth... See more

“If you feel resistance before you begin, it’s usually procrastination and you need to get started.

If you feel resistance after you begin, it’s usually feedback and you need to make adjustments.”

James Clear • 3-2-1: On discarding old commitments, handling disappointments, and how to go from vision to reality

More generally, it’s not beginnings and ends that count, but middles. Things and thoughts advance or grow out from the middle, and that’s where you have to get to work, that’s where everything unfolds.

– Gilles Deleuze, On Leibniz

“I turn sentences around. That’s my life. I write a sentence and then I turn it around. Then I look at it and I turn it around again. Then I have lunch. Then I come back in and write another sentence. Then I have tea and turn the new sentence around. Then I lie down on my sofa and think. Then I get up and throw them out and start from the beginning

Be ambitious about the process, not just the outcome. (To use my own hobby as an example, when I bake, I put on some good music, I take my time, I eat too much batter. That way, if the recipe implodes–like when I accidentally mixed up powdered sugar and flour–the whole thing isn’t a wash.)

Let more than one thing hold your ambition, or meaning. (Th... See more

Anne Helen Petersen • This Will Change the Way You Think About Ambition

Accomplishments just feel like inevitabilities that you have to work really hard for.