Many thanks to Jacob for that distillation.

Another salient point that should probably be mentioned is that she is an Editor at a very well-known magazine. Went to school for magazining. She knows what she’s doing.

Alright, we’ve got that out of the way. There’s surely a better way to give you that information, but that’s how you’re getting it.

This was the week before the launch of 7STOPS and I mentioned to her that she should come to my party. “What is it for?” she asks.

“Well, remember, I mentioned to you that I’m creating this, well, it’s an online magazine, sort of, and this is a party for that.”

“So it’s a launch party?”

“Well, no—I am really trying not to call it a launch party. It’s more of a, hey, friends are in town party, that just sort of coincides with this thing.”

“Why not a launch party?”

“It’s, well, it’s a lot of pressure, you know? You’re saying, here’s this thing and we’re launching it and now it has to last and be successful.”

I wimped out. I mean, what did I know about creating a magazine compared to her? Really, all I know about editing is what I’ve gleamed from Robert Gottlieb in the Paris Review.

But it’s such a cowardly act, isn’t it, to create something and not let anyone see it? Or to share it with only those people you know will pat you on the back and tell you that you’re beautiful.

Or, even, to not create in the first place for fear of criticism or fear of not being as good as your heroes.

I’m writing this with the full knowledge that I’m going to hate it after I hit “Publish.”

It’s something that’s been fairly ever present for me nonetheless. But I’m increasingly convinced I’m not alone in this.

(Yes, it takes me years to discover things most people learn at 17. The girl who insists that she doesn’t care obsesses over what people think of her, the guy making $150,000 a year feels insecure when he realizes his classmates are making $200,000 annually. These things are probably more obvious to others than they were to me.)

Jeffrey Lewis alludes to this feeling in Williamsburg Will Oldham Horror:

You’re like the king of a certain genre but even you must want to quit
like if you hear a record by Bob Dylan or Neil Young or whatever.
You must start thinkin’ “people like me , but i won’t be that good ever”
and i’m sure the thing is probably Dylan himself too
stayed up some nights wishing he was as good as Ginsberg or Camus

Ira Glass, on storytelling, but really on creation:

What nobody tells [beginners] — and I really wish someone had told this to me… is that all of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, and it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase. They quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this… It’s going to take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.

Merlin Mann:

Well, you could quit, because it’s too hard to make stuff you aren’t already great at. You could convert all that pointless effort and practice back into MySpace updates and the production of funny cat pictures. No, it’s not technically the worst thing that could happen, but it’s a damned common pathway for fear to molder back into an emotional impulse to put on jammies and watch Judge Judy.