“Ninety-five percent of what I write is crapola and I just cut it to find the 5 percent that might be worth putting out into the world.”

Art critic Jerry Saltz talks about how to channel your stress into creativity in the  New York Times Book Review:

Creativity is a survival strategy. “It’s in every bone in every person’s body; it was there with us in the caves. And isolation favors art, which is an intimate practice. Right now, people are working over long periods of time at the kitchen table with the kids drawing or wreaking havoc nearby. Art has always been made under these circumstances. In many ways, this is closer to what art was for the last 50,000 years than it has been for a long time.”. . . .

Be willing to be embarrassed. “Never, ever think about creating something good. Good is boring. Ninety-five percent of what I write is crapola and I just cut it to find the 5 percent that might be worth putting out into the world. You have to open up and pursue that kind of radical vulnerability.”

There is no wasted time. “Nothing will happen if you’re not working. Work is absolutely the only thing that will take away the foulness, the curse and the pain that comes from not working. And, once you begin, you will go to a place so strange, so filled with possibility, you’ve already put aside your fear. Allow yourself to get lost there; just follow whatever idiot thread you get on. I do! Art tells you something you didn’t need to know until you know it.”. . .