Merlin Mann on the creative process

“Not to go all philosophical, but I really believe that there’s a part of you that really

wants to go in this one direction to make cool stuff, and there’s another part of you that’s

terrified at how bad you’re going to be at it, and that people are going to see you

suck. And nobody likes being seen sucking. And it’s natural to observe that other people

seem to be great from the second they start typing. [But in actuality,] they’ve just gotten

really good at starting, and they’ve gotten really good at not minding that they suck. And

if you don’t believe that, ask anybody who writes professionally, or who does anything over

and over and over again. The only difference is that they’ve gotten really OK with the fact

that they suck sometimes.

–Merlin”Not to go all philosophical, but I really believe that there’s a part of you that really wants to go in this one direction to make cool stuff, and there’s another part of you that’s terrified at how bad you’re going to be at it, and that people are going to see you suck. And nobody likes being seen sucking. And it’s natural to observe that other people seem to be great from the second they start typing. [But in actuality,] they’ve just gotten really good at starting, and they’ve gotten really good at not minding that they suck. And if you don’t believe that, ask anybody who writes professionally, or who does anything over and over and over again. The only difference is that they’ve gotten really OK with the fact that they suck sometimes.” Mann, speaking about the creative process, at Maximum Fun’s 2009 MaxFunCon

“Not to go all philosophical, but I really believe that there’s a part of you that really wants to go in this one direction to make cool stuff, and there’s another part of you that’s terrified at how bad you’re going to be at it, and that people are going to see you suck. And nobody likes being seen sucking. And it’s natural to observe that other people seem to be great from the second they start typing. [But really,] they’ve just gotten really good at starting, and they’ve gotten really good at not minding that they suck.

And if you don’t believe that, ask anybody who writes professionally, or who does anything over and over and over again. The only difference is that they’ve gotten really OK with the fact that they suck sometimes.”

–Merlin Mann, speaking about the creative process, at Maximum Fun’s 2009 MaxFunCon

Click here to listen to access Merlin’s MaxFunCon lecture, on BoingBoing.