A reblog via Kevin Kelly.
Lucky accidents seldom happen to writers who don't work. You will find that you may rewrite and rewrite a poem and it never seems quite right. Then a much better poem may come rather fast and you wonder why you bothered with all that work on the earlier poem. Actually, the hard work you do on one poem is put in on all poems. The hard work on the first poem is responsible for the sudden ease of the second. If you just sit around waiting for the easy ones, nothing will come. Get to work.
Richard's message applies to far more than authoring poems. The necessity of daily practice is ingrained in my approach to writing, web development, and coding other tools.
Society blissfully ignores our stupendous failures, and graciously embraces even a single brilliant creation. This doesn't discount the import of strategy, tactics, and picking the right battles. You can walk into a concrete wall until your battered and bloody, but you'll never get any better at walking into walls.