Over time, do it better
Over time, do it better
On Donald Glover, making sandcastles, and my first book.
For the last two years, there has been a Post-it Note stuck to the bottom of my computer screen that says, ‘Make the best sandcastle’. It is a quote from a New Yorker profile titled ‘Donald Glover Can’t Save You’ which is ironic because this line saves me almost every time. If it doesn’t, I reread the entire profile because procrastination also helps. Alternatively, I watch the YouTube video of ‘Donald Glover being real for 4 minutes straight’. The sandcastle Post-it usually works, though, because it eases the paralysis of fear. Making the best sandcastle does not mean being the best at what you do. It means focussing on the current project or task at hand with as much fervour as possible. Give it everything you have in the time you have. Do it well, and over time, do it better.
If you’re not familiar with Donald Glover he is a man who began his career as a writer on ‘30 Rock’. He later became an actor on ‘Community’, then a stand-up comedian, then a rapper and singer under his stage name Childish Gambino. He now stars in blockbusters like ‘Star Wars’ and ‘The Lion King’ and his FX show ‘Atlanta’ - ‘a black comedy about black life’ - was described by Chris Rock as the best show on television. He’s won Grammys and Emmys and he is only thirty-six. His ability to transcend industries appears to have been powered by innate talent, but also something else: a willingness to try things and keep trying them. To build sandcastle after sandcastle over and over and over again. In the video where Donald Glover is being real for 4 minutes straight, he said that people often ask what equipment he uses to mix music. “They’re like, ‘What do you do? What do you record on? What do you make beats on? What’s different from you? What’s the reason I can’t do what you do?’ And the reason is, you just don’t want to do it.”
I have been thinking about sandcastles lately because my first book has been released into the world (well, it is currently available on pre-order). It has induced excitement and nerves and a reflectiveness I haven’t made time for in a while. I wrote the first 500 words down on my twenty-fifth birthday, messaged a friend, and revisited the document most weekends following. It was a secret sandcastle I could quietly work on and the quote I kept in my notebook during the first year wasn’t so different to the sandcastle Post-it I have now. It was a quote by Ira Glass, the host of This American Life, who said: “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, 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.” Most people, according to Glass, quit before they move beyond this phase but he advises those starting out in their careers to sit with this feeling, to sit with the gap, and keep wading their way through to the other side. “The most important thing you can do is do a lot of work,” he said. “It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions… It’s gonna take a while. It’s normal to take a while. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”
In the early stages of writing, my quiet naivety hoped this book would be published before my 27th birthday. I am now 28, and it will be in bookstores before my 29th. (As Bill Gates once said, ‘Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten.’) There have been countless iterations, drafts and edits since those initial 500 words were laid down (and they were definitely deleted). I'm relieved its arriving later than planned. Today, the gap between my ambitions and ability is still present, but it is smaller than it was. This book has been the sandcastle I have tended to with the hope of doing it well, and over time, doing it better. This newsletter is another sandcastle made with the same motives.
Most people say that starting something is the hard part but I disagree. Starting something is shiny and new and exciting. Persisting is less shiny and less new and less exciting and far more difficult. However, persisting is the difference between finishing and not finishing, growing and not growing, so what choice do we have but to keep going? I think the unexpected side-effect of making sandcastles is the growth we experience while making them. As Glover also said in The New Yorker profile, “Authenticity is the journey of figuring out who you are through what you make.” I don’t think this is exclusive to creative work. It can apply to just about any career. The outcome of the work is not just the work itself but who you become as a person while doing it. This is the part we often forget to appreciate, maybe because we are so intently focused on the sandcastle. We must remember to reflect, to look back as well as forward and see how far we’ve come, if only to see the value in doing it all over again.
Some related (and unrelated) recommendations:
Obviously, my book, The First Move. It is an examination of gender equality in modern romance and a big, audacious for women to own they are and what they want in love.
This 2018 New Yorker profile on Donald Glover which I return to time and time again. It explores his rise to fame, his complexities as a human, and his thoughts on race in America.
This incredibly powerful New York Times op-ed from Caroline Randall Williams on removing Confederate monuments.
This newsletter from Nick Cave on what love is.
Dolly Alderton's column in The Times on her favourite advice-givers. This is behind a paywall, so I apologise if you can't access it.
My sister sent me this playlist called 'Custard' which I have been listening to and loving this week.
I drove down the coast of New South Wales on the weekend and spent two days out of the city. If you haven't done a weekender lately, and are able to, I highly recommend it.
This video of 'Donald Glover being real for 4 minutes straight', of course.
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