I really need to pick up this book. Based on the excerpts on that page, it seems like the book speaks precisely about the hangups I've been having lately with wanting to produce music or photography but feeling like I just can't. In particular, this paragraph struck me:

The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the "quantity" group: fifty pound of pots rated an "A", forty pounds a "B", and so on. Those being graded on "quality", however, needed to produce only one pot — albeit a perfect one — to get an "A". Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the "quantity" group was busily churning out piles of work — and learning from their mistakes — the "quality" group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

That sounds just like my experiences with photography lately. As a glance at my photogallery will show, I haven't been taking many pictures lately, other than the trips I've taken. It feels like nothing I see is worth taking a picture of. Several times over the last few weeks I've driven past something — some arrangement of buildings, or an interesting-looking person, or whatever — and briefly considered stopping to take pictures, but I always end up deciding it's not worth the effort, because the sky is gray and dull / image would be a cliché / lighting wouldn't make for a good image / etc. I should probably put in the effort and stop and take pictures anyway, even if they turn out to be crap, because you still learn little things each time. Of course, often I'm late for something as well (since the only times I really go out are to go to work or occasionally a movie or something), so I don't have time to stop anyway. But in general, I think I need to push myself to take more pictures even if I know they're probably not going to be worth posting. I gotta do something to fill up that 150gb of free space I have on my HD.

I've had a very similar experience with music as well. I want to write music, but I'm frustrated by the fact that I only know the most basic chords (major, minor, 5th), and everything that comes to mind sounds simple and cliché'd. I need to stop worrying so much about this quest for originality and just write stuff, even if it sounds trite and unoriginal. I think the simple process of assembling (and recording) songs would help kick start things, and with time more complex musical ideas would probably follow. And even if not, it's not like simple music can't be fun to listen to. You won't impress a prog snob with three-chord rock, but the simplicity of NOFX doesn't stop me from getting really into it and air-drumming and singing along loudly and then looking over at the car next to me at a stoplight and noticing them staring at me with amusement and mild sympathy.