Chapter Thirty-Eight. Iterate and Innovate

John knew what it was like to be poor. He was writer after all, and in the early 1900s, it was tough to get a job. John tried his luck in New York, but miserably failed. As he said, “I had a thin, lonely, hungry time of it. And I remember too well the cockroaches under my washbasin and the impossibility of getting a job. I was scared thoroughly. And I can’t forget the scare.” So John moved back to the comforts of California, where he was born. He picked up odd jobs, like working at a fish hatchery in Tahoe City, where he met his future wife. They got married and moved to Pacific Grove to live in a cottage owned by his dad. Still scraping by, John wrote even though funds were sparse. But they were in love, and that kept them afloat. As he wrote to a friend, “Financially we are a mess, but ‘spiritually’ we ride the clouds.”

The gap is something that everyone who does creative work knows. The celebrated storyteller Ira Glass put it this way: “All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple of years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase; they quit.”

John wasn’t willing to give up, so he fought with words for four more years—good work takes time. He finished another novel but felt depleted and alone. He wrote, “I need a dog pretty badly.” Yet more than companionship, he needed some cash. The light company was scheduled to turn the power off in a few days. Fortunately, the novel was a very minor success. The electricity stayed on, and the gap diminished some more. He continued to write, and the following few novels closed the gap even more. When he published his book Tortilla Flat, the gap disappeared.

Tortilla Flat was a critical and commercial success. Now in his mid-thirties, John Steinbeck was getting his stride, and he continued to write at a quickening pace. Plus, Steinbeck finally had enough money to pay rent and fulfill a few dreams. One dream was getting a dog. So they adopted Toby, a small Irish setter pup. The puppy played around while Steinbeck sharpened his pencils and got to work.

Steinbeck set out to write a new book about the place he grew up and the people who lived there—people who had callused hands from all their hard work. The book was turning out well. The plot was strong and filled with the intrinsic yet underestimated goodness and beauty of simple things. The sands of time seemed to be on his side.

One day after all twelve pencils were dull, he left his study and walked out the door. Seeing an opportunity to explore, Toby, the ever-inquisitive puppy, decided to take a look around. Finding a stack of papers, she quickly tore them to shreds. Months and months of work on the book was turned into trash. Steinbeck wrote to his publisher, “Minor tragedy stalked. There was no other draft. I was pretty mad, but the poor little fellow may have been acting critically.” It was a painful blow, but Steinbeck didn’t take offense. He even wondered if Toby knew what he was doing after all—maybe Toby was right and what had been written needed to be revised?

Steinbeck rewrote the book, and it turned out better the second time around. His experience of losing the book might just be what gave it its edge. And it was almost as if Steinbeck’s own fight was hidden within his words. You can see it with quotes like these: “I know it’s tough, but don’t give up... I said I’d fight back, but I didn’t say I’d fight fair.... And now we sing for everything that we’ve lost. And now we scream for everything that we’ve loved... Truth be told I would set my whole world on fire just to watch it burn in your eyes.” But perhaps the most famous phrase gives it all away: “The best laid schemes of mice and men often go awry.” Needless to say the book, Of Mice and Men, was a huge success.

Like most people who do creative work, Steinbeck wasn’t an overnight success. Rather it was the endless hours, immense effort, and emotion that eventually led Steinbeck to create great work. All of the time spent on those early unsuccessful books developed his skills and technique. Most of us want the skill (and the fame) but don’t know where to start. And most of us don’t start because we set our sights too high. We aim for the stars but can’t even get off the ground.

Herein lies the problem with dreams that are big: they improve our vision but don’t change our technique. Technique takes time, whether you’re a writer working on rough drafts, a photographer shooting frames, or a musician practicing scales. The whole point is to start and persist; otherwise, procrastination sets in. As J. R. R. Tolkien said, “It’s the job never started that takes the longest to finish.” And whether you’re a writer, photographer, poet, or martial artist, the journey to gain skill follows a similar path.

Simultaneously, Bruce practiced martial arts, spending hours and hours refining his skills. And he trained with such discipline that he could do push-ups with only two fingers touching the ground. He was quick on his feet, strong in body, and growing in his mind. He would soon combine all these skills to create a version of martial arts that was completely his own. And Bruce Lee’s fighting style wasn’t just poetry in motion; it was art.

John Steinbeck and Bruce Lee are among some of the most creative people of their time. And if you look deeper into their stories, you’ll discover that they both brought innovation to their trades. The innovation came from years of refining their craft. Their secret was to iterate and persist.

It goes without saying that technique doesn’t develop by itself. And without technique, creativity dies. That’s why most kids stop drawing around the age of 12. It’s the age when most art education ends. Without the training, repetition, and practice, they give up. Who wants to keep drawing bad pictures of the same old things? But when we learn new techniques, it feeds the creative fire. Technique is the lifeblood of all creativity that becomes art. But the point of developing technique is never simply the mastery of a technical skill. The point of learning technique is to transcend.

The popular image of Bruce Lee is an aggressive fighting machine. This image works because he was an indomitable force. Lee created his life with his own bare hands. As he said, “To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities.” Lee was a force of nature and his ego was strong, but he was humble as well. As C. S. Lewis explained, “True humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.” Bruce Lee thought highly of himself, but when was in the zone, all those thoughts disappeared. His technical skill transcended rational thought. It was as if his movement were a subconscious flow. And when he fought it was as if he walked on air.

Thinking can impede the creative flow. That explains why athletes, artists, dancers, and musicians put so much time into practicing their skill. As the French artist Edgar Degas said, “Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.” Yet to achieve such a state requires an immense amount of work. And it isn’t just about mastery or skill. At the photography school where I taught, many of the graduating students were technical virtuosos but were expressively weak. These students had mistakenly confused technique as the end goal, gaining skills without emotional depth, heart, and soul. People like John Steinbeck and Bruce Lee combined technique with much more. The result was not a bag of tricks but a wild and prolific creative flow. The most creative pursue expertise with a higher and more noble goal.