The "Kill Your Darlings" Mantra for Masterwork Creation

There's a message I want to offer to you that I think is going to be valuable to you as you create your masterworks.

And the message is, it's been attributed to various people, including William Faulkner and Stephen King.

And it's about killing your darlings.

And you might say, Robin, you know, you are so careful about vocabulary.

And, you know, I really do believe words have tremendous power.

Why am I talking about something such as killing your darlings? But killing your darlings is...

advice given to writers which is no matter how precious you think your writing is maybe it's a chapter you're in love with it you think it's fantastic you always have to be willing to delete that chapter from the work for the greater good of the work and that doesn't just apply to artists And it doesn't just apply to writers, it applies to anyone who is in the creative field.

And if you're pushing code, if you're start, you know, a startup entrepreneur, if you're running a big business, like a lot of people in the circle of legends, if you're doing screenplays, if you're a movement maker, which you probably are, you've got to be willing to let go of things you think are amazing, for the sake of the greater good of the creative project.

you you know less is often more less is often more and so sometimes we create this content we think it's fantastic and we won't let go of it and it just creates complexity brings me to another point which is it often takes a lifetime to learn to make something look really simple and that's when you see a real master if you look at you know maybe it's a pablo picasso maybe it's a jean-michel basquiat You can tell a master because a master knows what not to put in.

If you look at beginners and amateurs, what they do is they put everything into the painting.

They put everything into the business.

They chase every opportunity.

They put everything into the screenplay.

They put everything into the restaurant menu if their chefs are running a hospitality empire.

But what mastery is, is you know your craft and feel so much that you know exactly what to put in so that the essence of your vision is captured.

And that often takes 20 years.

That often takes 30 years.

That's why sometimes...

And another point is, it was Bob Dylan who said, don't criticize what you don't understand.

That's why often it takes a master to appreciate mastery.

It often takes a master to appreciate mastery.

And I've been guilty of that in my own life.

I'll go to an art gallery and I'll see something, maybe it's a Damien Hirst or something like that, and I don't really understand what went into it.

So I just go, oh, that's a big shark in formaldehyde.

Why is that known as, you know, this work of art? And...