Terry Teachout reflects on some writing advice from Ira Glass that has passed around the Internet for years. Here’s a part of it, if you’ve seen it before. “But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, your taste is still killer, and your taste is good enough that you can tell that what you’re making is kind of a disappointment to you.”

The bottom line is to write through the discouraging junk until you gain the skill to write with the excellence your taste has always wanted.

Teachout says he didn’t have problem as such, because he didn’t start writing creatively until he had spent many years writing professionally.

All this leads me to believe that Ira Glass’ observations about the relationship between taste and creative inhibition are the answer to the question of why so few drama critics try to write plays. If you’re a competent critic, then you’re painfully conscious of the yawning gap between “good” and “pretty good.” That knowledge can’t help but be inhibiting—especially when you earn your living by sitting in public judgment on the creative work of other writers. . . .

For the moral of my story is that while it’s important to be realistic, both about your own abilities and, more generally, the larger prospects for success in the world of art, it can be just as important not to let yourself be overwhelmed by that realism.