Anne Lamott writes in Crooked Little Heart: A Novel, “expectations are resentments waiting to happen.” Elsewhere, she said, “expectations are premeditated resentments.” And: “Expectations are resentments under construction: set the expectations bar as low as you can!”

In high school, Judd Apatow began his lifelong practice of interviewing his comedy and writing heroes. From interviewing hundreds of legendary artists, he said, he developed a very simple theory of creativity. He calls it the Down-Up theory: “get the ideas DOWN then fix them UP.” “Give yourself permission to suck. Anything goes. Just get something... See more