Don't Stop Until You're Proud

This post is for the ones who want to make art, not content.

"Life is short, art is long." - Seneca

The page before you - blank.
Your mind - blocked.

Creative work isn't easy.

Ernest Hemingway used to say that there's nothing to writing. He said, " All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed."

Like most Steemians on this platform, you’ve managed to put out work every day if necessary.

You practice “assiduity” meaning you sit on your ass and do it.

It's not that hard in hindsight.

The truth is we all have endless things to say.

There’s this proverbial writer's block that all writers talk about.

But there’s no such thing as talker's block.

You have to hold your tongue when you speak to a friend. But you stand in silence when it's time to be heard.

After all the mental acrobatics, you learn to write eventually.

But posting every day for the sake of posting is not the way to go either. It gets mechanical and lifeless.

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"I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free." - Michelangelo

The last thing you want to be is the artist who holds back and becomes cold and calculative with his or her work.

The last thing you want to be is a content producer instead of an art producer. You don't want to be the person who only cares for clicks over connection.

So, how do you remind yourself not to get sucked into the abyss of pageview perversion?

Think:

“Don't stop until you’re proud.”

Yes, you feel accomplished when you hit Post for the day.

But when you spend 2x the time perfecting your work and you feel it's the best damn piece you have created, you will feel whole. A piece you can be proud of. One of your greatest hits.

How do you know? You know. You always knew. When the work starts to consume you and drag you along for a ride you deem unpleasant.

But looking back you knew you gave it your all - and that's what matters.

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"It begins with wanting to create a classic." - Robert Greene

Having been writing for over a year, I can safely say that out of 50 articles I wrote, only about 5 are what I'm proud of.

When I apply for writing gigs, they always ask for 3-5 links to works I'm most proud of and often times, the same ones show up.

And not one of them, NOT ONE, was a breeze to write. They weren't easy - they took me much longer to write, sometimes changing the entire structure just to make it more compelling.

I know they're good because I took my time to perfect them and other people love them too.

They were clapped for over 300 times on Medium and make for one of my most upvoted posts on Steemit.

It was all because on some days last year, I decided to spend a little more time to work on some articles.

A simple decision like that helped create the work that still serves me to this day and will still serve me well into the future.

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“The cowards never started and the weak died along the way. That leaves us.” - Phil Knight, Shoe Dog

The battle for timeless and perennial art is as old as the hills.

Art is what we live for, it's what makes us feel alive. It changes lives.

It is also something that can drain the life out of us, in the quest to create the best.

Know that your digital legacy is a real thing.

One day, your grandchildren will Google your name (like I did mine) - what do you want them to remember you by?

They will see your old Facebook photos when you were in high school, that shitty Blogspot you started as your online random-ass diary and now - your Steemit blog.

Write like you mean it.

Don't stop until you're proud.