A Creator Does Not Build on Emotion

The consumer is wholly moved by a creation, a song or a film or the grandeur of a building, and expects that a creation is built with the same emotion, but it isn't, a creation is built through practice and then more practice and then skill and craftsmanship and then planning and the execution of a plan through diligent work. All these years of labor intersect with the consumer in a shining, fleeting moment, but sustaining the moment in the act of creation itself is not possible.

For this reason, a creator distrusts emotion. Certainly a writer can turn a scene in a novel with a tear on his cheek, but the tear also causes him to question whether or not the page will be thrown out the following day for too much sentimentality, because a book is to the writer like the house is to the builder, it's right fitting boards and plumb windows, not a feeling of love for the boards or the windows.

Do not stir up emotion before you work. Kill it off. What you are trying to do with the emotion is feel what the consumer feels when they encounter your work before the work is even done, and this will steal your motivation to work. You are a carpenter showing up for the job with your lunch pale in hand. You are putting in the hours. This work will last a good bit of the day and you won't like it. Leave the emotion to the consumers who encounter your creation. You are a craftsman, not a sniffling pre-teen keeping a journal.

A Creator Does Not Build on Emotion is a post from: Donald Miller's Blog