"If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?" asked legendary NCAA men's basketball coach John Wooden. When creating, our tendency is to want to call a song or painting finished before it may actually be a complete piece of art.
"We'll fix it in mixing," says the hurried producer in the studio.
"We'll Photoshop that right out," says the impatient photographer.
"All great achievements require time," says Maya Angelou.
In my limited experience, things never quite get fixed like we hope they will.
I continually come back to tension between quantity and quality. My human productive side says to finish the song so I can start a new one. My creative soul says be patient. The ironic thing is that sometimes the best songs don't take very long to write, but only naturally flow out of a patient perspective. Of course, all of this is only possible if we are cautious of our expectations. With the best of intentions, we can miss out on the heart of creating art: enjoyment.
Keep writing (patiently),
Ben
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