Previously, I’ve mentioned the importance of regulary producing art, over and over, so that you keep up with yourself. Otherwise your art gets stale before you’re done, and you end up scrapping it or never completing it.
The other benefit of regularly producing art is that you learn to be consistent. Consistency is an important aspect of trust. Trustworthy musicians are fun to play with. Of course, good musicians are even more fun! But, it’s good to be trustworthy. I’m not going to get into the band dynamics that come from being trustworthy, that’s what sites like How to Run a Band are for (disclosure: I’m in a band with Seth). And I won’t get into the importance of your fans trusting you, and so on.
But if the quality of your art is all over the map, then you will suffer. If you’re awake one day, and hung over the next, then you’ll suffer. If you only make art when you’re inspired, then you’ll suffer through long periods of time without productivity. You probably already suffer. That’s why you’re an artist. Might as well avoid letting your art suffer, too.
But make sure you’re being realistic. I set a goal to make a blog post once/week, which I thought was realistic at the time, and yet I’m quickly closing the gap of only being a few weeks ahead. I started a few months ahead. By the time you are reading this, I will be on vacation. Good thing I am still ahead! I can focus on my family over vacation. It’s a challenge, but it pays off. And I hope this is a realistic challenge. If I stop delivering a blog post every week, then I expect people will stop checking up on me to see what’s up, and I will get even farther behind when I have tours or vacations.
On a related note, if I don’t write good content, then you’ll stop too! Another example of setting realistic goals: you need to have consistent quality.
This post is probably on the low end of the quality spectrum, but just a thought that I felt was worth sharing.