Play until your fingers bleed

Talent renders the whole idea of rehearsal meaningless; when you find something at which you are talented, you do it (whatever it is) until your fingers bleed or your eyes are ready to fall out of your head.  Even when no one is listening (or reading, or watching), every outlying is a bavura performance, because you as the creator are happy.  Perhaps even ecstatic.  

That goes for reading and writing as well as for playing a musical instrument, hitting a baseball, or running the four-forty.  The sort of strenuous reading and writing program I advocate – four to six hours a day, every day – will not seem strenuous if you really enjoy doing these things and have an aptitude for them…      

~Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

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Photo: Hands of Mstislav Rostropovich, 1961 – by Erich Auerbach; via alesario

Quote: via Thrive