“Have blind faith that if you go in and work every day it will get better. Three days will go by and you will be in that office and you will think every day is terrible. But on the fourth day, if you do go in, if you don’t go into town or out in the garden, something usually will break through…I don’t want to go in there at all. It’s low dread, every morning. That dread goes away after you’ve been in there an hour. I keep saying ‘in there’ as if it’s some kind of chamber, a different atmosphere. It is, in a way. There’s almost a psychic wall. The air changes. I mean you don’t want to go through that door. But once you’re in there, you’re there, and it’s hard to go out.” -Joan Didion
“Some mornings, you try to start the car, and it runs—great…Most times, you start the car, it runs for a half an hour, breaks down, won’t start up for two weeks. You try to start it—[makes sputtering sound of an engine failing to turn over]—nothing. Again, [makes sputtering sound of an engine failing to turn over]—nothing. Records are made like that. You know? I’ve written six songs that I think are record-worthy in six days and then spent an entire year trying to write six more. It’s simply not predictable. You have to get used to withstanding that anxiety, you have to get comfortable with it…I’ve gotten comfortable with that anxiety.” -Bruce Springsteen
“The professional does not wait for inspiration; he acts in anticipation of it.” -Steven Pressfield
No matter how talented or accomplished you are, making art, especially when you’re striving for excellence, is still really, really freakin’ hard. And most days you’re not gonna feel like doing it. That’s the resistance, or as Joan Didion says above, the “low dread”, and it never goes away.
Being a pro means getting in there day after day, no matter what. No matter the resistance. No matter the low dread. Doing the work when it sucks.
Yet trusting all the while, that if you stay at it long enough, eventually it won’t.
The Vs. Studio Blog 