Work
I once had a drink with the late Dave Roberts. I asked him how he managed to write a book every year (he wrote 32 books), and he replied, "It's my job". My thoughts on that answer are too complex to scribble, but I'm not a writer like Roberts, or maybe even a writer at all, but it's an answer worth considering if you're in the business of creativity.
One of my heroes - and role models - of creativity is (or perhaps was) the graphic designer Peter Saville, who never seemed to take creativity as a job seriously and, in many ways, went out of his way to sabotage any sort of a career. When you write commercially, as I have in the past, you realize what's most valued isn't talent, but reliability, the person who hands their work in on time. The same is true all the way down the line, from writers to editors to publishers, to retailers, to consumers. It's like getting a Big Mac; as long as it looks, tastes, and costs like a Big Mac, you're happy. You hand over the cash, which is paid backwards all along the chain.
As anyone who reads the shite on here or in my books, I'm not into drive-through content (order, pay, collect, consumer, repeat), but more street food; sometimes bad, sometimes good, sometimes it'll make your minute, sometimes it will give you the shits for weeks.
Back to Saville, who, if you don't know anything about, you should; his approach to work is best summed up by his view on creative production accountability: "I did work which I never had to answer to anyone about – but I also never had to answer to myself about it". For Saville, it was never a job, which is why he often had no money, but it meant he was also never just another jobbing graphic designer. He was a hero to them all.