The practice

To state this again. There are a set of things that excite you artistically, and there are a set of things that the public enjoys, and you are looking for something in the intersection of those two sets. You can make work that is commercially successful while still staying true to your artistic interests.

– fnnch

Change unlocks something - Rick Rubin

The idea of changing your life for a period of time, going to a new environment, experiencing a different way of living has to impact your work. It has to unlock something.

There are new things to notice. There are new feelings to be had. And it could be, if you’re city dweller, going to nature can unlock you.

And it dawned on me that I might have to change my inner thought patterns… that I would have to start believing in possibilities that I wouldn’t have allowed before, that I had been closing my creativity down to a very narrow, controllable scale… that things had become too familiar and I might have to disorient myself.

-Bob Dylan

I will not be "famous," "great." I will go on adventuring, changing, opening my mind and my eyes, refusing to be stamped and stereotyped. The thing is to free one's self: to let it find its dimensions, not be impeded.

– Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary

Part of “good practice” (deep focus, lots of iteration) is having properly-sized feedback loops. Too short a loop, and it subverts the development of voice (too many other voices jutting in, telling you how to be). Too long a loop, and you might lose momentum (some feedback, properly timed, is critical). For me, the daily popup newsletter is a good