The Practice: Shipping Creative Work

Sculptor Elizabeth King said it beautifully, “Process saves us from the poverty of our intentions.”

And so begins “who’s it for?” Once you choose which subgroup to tell your story to, which subgroup needs to change, this group becomes your focus. What do they believe? What do they want? Who do they trust? What’s their narrative? What will they tell their friends?

But of all the usable directions, a sailboat goes slowest when it is going downwind. That’s because the sail acts as a parachute, meaning the boat can’t go any faster than the wind behind it. Dandelions spread their seeds at the whims of the wind, but they don’t make much of an impact. The sailboat doesn’t work that way. The sailboat is optimized t

84. Bicycle Problems I’m having trouble learning to ride a bike. How long have you practiced? About fifteen minutes. It might take a lot longer than that. It might take months. I want to learn to ride a bike, but I don’t want to fall, even once. Not even once? I need to be able to ride a bike blindfolded. Have you ever seen anyone do that? No, but that

Positive people are more likely to enjoy the practice. They’re not wasting any time experiencing failure in advance.

The first thing is making exactly what you want, for you. And the second thing is making something for those you seek to connect and change. Pursuing either is fine. Pursuing both is a recipe for unhappiness, because what you’re actually doing is insisting that other people want what you want and see what you see.

art: the act of doing something that might not work, simply because it’s a generous thing to do.

Go too far to please the audience and you become a hack. Lose your point of view, lose your reason for doing the work, become a hack. Focus only on the results, become a hack. On the other hand, if you ignore what you see and simply create for yourself, you’ve walked away from empathy. If there is no change, there is no art. The professional unders

Being accepted and admired by your specific audience is another sort of good—and for most of us, this is actually enough.

We have to be able to say “it’s not for you” and mean it.