Ira Glass on the Taste Gap

These youtube videos by Ira Glass of the glorious radio show This American
Life make up one of the most inspiring 12 minutes I've ever seen:

http://www.maximumfun.org/blog/2007/02/ira-glass-on-storytelling.html

The biggest revelation was this one, in Glass-speak which I have
painstakingly transcribed (because I love it):

"there's a gap - that for the first couple of years that you're making
stuff, what you're making isn't so good, ok, it's not that great. It's
trying to be good, but it's really not that good. But your *taste*, the
thing that got you into the game, your taste is still killer. And your
taste is still so good that you can tell that what you're making is kind
of a disappointment to you, you know what I mean? Like you can tell that
it's still sort of crappy. A lot people never get past that phase, a lot
of people at that point they quit. And the thing I would just like to say
to you with all my heart is that most everybody I know, who does
interesting creative work, they went through a phase of years where they
had really good taste and they knew what they were making wasn't as good
as they wanted it to be. They fell short...

You gotta know that it's totally normal, and the most important possible
thing that you can do, is do a lot of work. Do a huge volume of work. Put
yourself on a deadline so you know that every week, every month you're
going to finish one story, whatever it's going to be.... it's only by
doing a volume of work that you're going to catch up, that you're going to
close that gap and the work you're making will be as good as your
ambitions."

And then, god bless him, he plays an old, embarassing tape of himself on
the radio, to make the point of how after *8 years* working at it he was
still pretty bad. And yet, eventually, he *got* it.