Your creative success is determined by the value you provide to your audience. In other words, you must produce high-quality content to become a successful creator.
But how do you create quality content as a writer (or creator)?
Most believe it’s about:
- Brilliant ideas
- Writing skills
- Persuasive headlines
- Years of experience
All these are essential for producing great content. However, another crucial factor significantly impacts quality.
It’s quantity.
If you can produce a massive volume of work consistently, the quality of your work grows significantly. In other words, quality comes from quantity.
Quality Follows Quantity
Whenever you create something, you try to make it high-quality. Whether you write, paint, make videos, or do other work, you want it to be the best.
However, producing high-quality work consistently is challenging, no matter how hard you try. Learning the skills and mastering what you do takes time, especially if you are a beginner.
That’s where quantity comes in.
Throughout my writing journey, I have learned the importance of producing quality work in a high volume. Quality is always our number one priority.
However, we also need quantity to achieve excellent results.
Focus on quantity first. Quality will follow.
The Parable of the Pottery Class
Authors David Bayles and Ted Orland share an interesting story in their book Art & Fear: A pottery teacher divided a class into groups A and B.
He told students in Group A to make a pot every day for 30 days. So, they would make 30 pots in total. Students in Group B had to work on a single pot for 30 days. They had to focus on perfecting one pot.
At the end of the month, the teacher evaluated the pots based on quality. The best pot came from Group A, which focused on quantity.
The students in Group B had all the time in the world to make a perfect pot, yet they lost. Group A students had more time to practice by creating piles of work. Their work was not excellent when they started, but they learned from their mistakes and did better each time they made a new pot. In the meantime, Group B students were busy perfecting their one pot.
This story is also called The Parable of the Pottery Class. It teaches you to embrace imperfection.
Here’s what I learned from my own experience as a writer:
It’s more about showing up consistently with high-volume work than inconsistently with a few excellent ones.
Drew Dernavich’s “Discard Pile”
The following image shows the desk of Drew Dernavich — the famous cartoonist at New Yorker Magazine:
This picture is a perfect interpretation of how quality is produced from quantity.
Drew has been a cartoonist for decades. Yet, he still experiences rejection. Although his work is not always perfect, he keeps going because he knows that quality work results from consistent creation.
Done is better than perfect.
After you have finished writing and editing your article, publish it. Do not overthink the process or outcome.
If your post does well, good. If it doesn’t, move on to the next.
Learn and implement.
In the game of online writing or any creative work, volume matters. The more you create, the more you will learn and the more chances you have of succeeding.
Get used to publishing and sending out imperfect work because the outcome is never in your control.
Here’s what I often say to aspiring writers:
One blog post can change your life. But it can take for you to write 100 blog posts to get the one that takes off.
